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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100026">A Nascent Kingdom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie'>fineandwittie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Building A Dream [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last Kingdom (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bebbenburg, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Cornwallum, East Anglia, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Infidelity, England (Country), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gender Roles, Grief/Mourning, Letters, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Politics, Scheming, Season 2 Alternate Ending, Uhtred being his clever self, Uhtred does not have his shit together about this, Wales, Wessex - Freeform, but not really, emotional polyamory, mercia, northumbria, this isn't so much a slow burn as an aggravating smoldering ember of a relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:54:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>43,074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100026</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to England Is All</p><p>It's been five months since Uhtred and Ragnar successfully took Bebbenburg. They've weathered a winter at the fort and it's finally time to make plans. They turn their sights south to Eoferwic, without which there'll be no united Northumbria.</p><p>Meanwhile, Alfred, who has been made King of Mercia as well, must mesh together these two kingdoms and deal with the plots that put him on the throne.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alfred the Great &amp; Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Alfred the Great/Uhtred of Bebbanburg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Building A Dream [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This, as always is neither beta'd nor proofread. I appreciate comments very much and would love to hear what you all think (if you'd like to point out typos, I will fix them) :D I need more Last Kingdom in my life and the fandom seems to small (comparatively)!</p><p>A note on age gaps: I have realized how large the age gap between Edward and Stiorra is, even with the liberties I’ve already taken and the ones the show took with their ages. Therefore, I have shaved another few years off Edward’s life. basically, I am shortening the amount of time Uhtred spent with Guthred before the enslavement and the amount of time between Ethandun and Guthred. Also possibly shortening the swamp. wherever I can close the gap. That means that instead of there being an 18 year age, there is only a 7 year age gap. Which means, Stiorra is 6 at the start of this and Edward is 13.</p><p>A note on historicity: I am trying as hard as I can to make as many people, places, and events as historical as I can. However, I am obviously taking liberties, since this is not how history happened and the show is also not how history happened. On that note, I have only just realized that Medieval Wales was apparently a series of Kingdoms? Oops? In the show, it is heavily implied that it is one kingdom unified under one king, so that is what I am going with…</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bebbenburg was much as Uhtred remembered it: gloomy, cold, and windblown. In his father’s time, the men were hard and cruel, but boisterous. The hall had been filled with harsh laughter and the taunts of drunks. Uhtred remembered being Osbert, remembered ducking his father Uhtred’s fists, remembered dodging his step mother’s pious and judgmental eyes. But there had been happy memories too, mixed into the gloom. He remembered sitting at the blacksmith’s knee and listening to the man speak of Wodin and of Thor. He remembered the smile of his older brother and the great height his shoulders had seemed when he swung little Osbert up to lug him around the courtyard and down on the beaches. </p><p>It seemed that at every turn, Uhtred was met with a memory that he’d pushed aside or forgotten. The whole of Bebbenburg was full of ghosts. He felt like a specter himself that fall and long winter, his first back after so many years away. He felt like he was moving in a dream or living a memory, that he was a mere imprint on the world and soon he would be forgotten to fade away to nothing. </p><p>Gisela’s warm body did not chase away this feeling. Nor did Finan’s strong shoulder under his arm nor Ragnar’s corded back against his own. It was well into February, Yule and Christmas both come and long gone, before anything at all reached him passed the cold.</p><p>He was standing on the ramparts, looking out at the lands that surrounded the fort, the lands that would hopefully be filled with huts and bustling people come summer. He’d been staring for a long time, though how long he did not know, when he finally became aware of a presence at his side. He turned his head to find Hild standing at his shoulder.</p><p>“It has been a long time since you lived here, Uhtred.” She said, voice quiet and calm.</p><p>It seemed like such a stupid thing to say, so obvious and unnecessary, but Uhtred simply nodded. She wasn’t wrong after all. It had been going on twenty years or maybe more, since Uhtred had lived at Bebbenburg. It seemed a lifetime. </p><p>It <i>was</i> a lifetime. </p><p>“Sometimes, time changes places and people, softens them, makes them kinder than they were.”</p><p>Uhtred snorted, a flicker of amusement warming his chest for a heartbeat, before it too faded. “Not Bebbenburg. It is exactly as I remember. Cold and harsh and bleak on the edges of the world.”</p><p>Hild frowned at this and turned to look at him. “Then why would you fight so hard to get it back? It seems to me that you hate it here.”</p><p>She was right again, of course. She usually was. “I do hate it here. But it is mine. It is my birthright. The only thing my father ever gave to me that was worth the pain it caused.”</p><p>Hild blinked, her expression softening into worry. “It is changing you, Uhtred. You are harder here. Colder. More like Bebbenburg itself. Your men grow uneasy in your presence, under your icy stares. And I miss you.”</p><p>The last was said in a plaintive tone, wistful and hurt, and it made something deep inside Uhtred’s chest ache. It was a wound that he had gone numb to in the months since they’d taken Bebbenburg from his uncle and step-brother-cousin. He had thought it gone for good. He had thought himself frozen, his purpose fulfilled and so his life useless. </p><p>But now he knew that she was right. Bebbenburg had changed him, had numbed him, had been like a drug that had dulled all his senses and his mind. He’d been held, since the day that they snuck in through the water gate and taken the fort, in a kind of stasis that he had not known how to break. But of course, Hild had known. Or had figured it out eventually.</p><p>In his detachment, he’d forgotten about the plans that he and Alfred had made, plans for beyond Bebbenburg. He’d forgotten the sharp knives of grief in his lungs and the burn of longing in his belly, the shame of failure stinging at his eyes. But they all rushed back to him like a wave crashing against the cliffs below the fort. He was drowning in it now, in sensation and feeling and thought where for so long there had been none.</p><p>Hild was watching him, just as she had in the meadow the day she’d treated his back and cut his hair. There was the same kindness in her eyes now, and equal pain. He wanted to hate her, for making him feel again, for making him remember, but he couldn’t because she had given him the greatest gift he thought he’d ever received. He sucked in a great shuddering breath as the cocoon that had trapped him for five long months fell away to dust. Tears welled in his eyes and his heart quaked. His father’s shadow was long and frigid, but Ragnar the Fearless cast a longer shadow still and he had always been warm. Uhtred had forgotten that as well.</p><p>Hild was smiling at him when he looked back up at her. She opened her arms to him and he fell against her like she was a rock in a storm, cliff to crash upon. He thought sometimes she was. She curled her hand into his hair and pressed their foreheads together, as he had done in the meadow. “There you are.” She murmured, her breath warm on his face.</p><p>He laughed, weak and wet, but real. “Why is it always you? How do you know me so well?”</p><p>Her smile deepened, crinkling her eyes as she stared into his. “Because you have shown me your heart and so I will always try to reflect it back to you whenever you need me to.”</p><p>He shook his head, pulling back, and felt a smile, nothing but a small curl of his lips, touch his mouth for the first time in months. “You are always too good a woman for God alone, Hild.”</p><p>She laughed and there was relief in it. “And you are always a rogue, but a lovable one.” She paused and her face softened. “You have no idea how good it is to see you looking out at me from behind your eyes again. It has been too long that you’ve been nothing but a vacant stare.”</p><p>Uhtred tightened his arms and tucked her face into his throat. “I’ve been…nothing but a ghost for too long. Cold and far away. You reached me when no one else could. You always reached for me when I think myself unreachable.”</p><p>“And I always will, Uhtred. I promise you.” Her voice was muffled, but clear. She squeezed him hard for a moment before pulling away. “Will you retreat again?”</p><p>Uhtred smiled, wider than before, though still not his usual dimpled grin. “I am here now. I cannot speak for the future, but I will promise you this. If I feel as though I am drifting, I will reach for you before I am too far from shore.”</p><p>Hild pulled him into another quick hug, then stepped back entirely. “That is all I ask. Now—“</p><p>A loud whoop from the courtyard below interrupted her. Hild shrugged at Uhtred’s raised eyebrow and they turned to see what the commotion was. Finan and Gisela were standing together, having clearly just exited the hall, grinning widely up at them. Uhtred tilted his head, curious. </p><p>“It’s good to have you back, Lord!” Finan called, still grinning.</p><p>Uhtred leaned over the railing, arching a brow though Finan was likely too far away to see it. “Finan, I have been here all along.”</p><p>It was Gisela who responded. “You haven’t, my love. In body, yes. But your spirit was…hidden somewhere. For too long. I have missed you.”</p><p>Uhtred smiled again, wider now and soft. How had he turned aside such love all these months? How had he left himself sink so far, when he had once promised himself that he would never grow into the man his Saxon father had been? yet, returning to Bebbenburg had frozen him, recreating his father in his, and he had let it happen. No more. Uhtred vowed silently that it would never happen again, no matter what he had to do to prevent it.</p><p>Gisela was still standing below him in the courtyard, radiant with joy and approaching motherhood. Her waist was thick with their growing child and he thought she had never been more beautiful than she was in that moment. He was a fool to waste any time with her. “And I miss you when you step out of a room, gleam of my heart.” He called it out, tone light and teasing, but meaning it in earnest. </p><p>Gisela smiled up at him, dropping her hand to smooth over the swelling belly. “You mean to tease, my love, but you forget that I always know when you are speaking truth.” Her eyes glittered in the weak winter sun.</p><p>Uhtred laughed, feeling lighter than he had in much too long and too raw to be embarrassed. Finan hooted with laughter too and beckoned them down.  “Well then, lover boy, abandon your pacing and come away from the ramparts. You’ve spent enough time up there to let a lifetime.” </p><p>A light hush settled over the courtyard at Finan’s teasing. Uhtred had not realized how poor his temper must have been to see the fear in the faces of Bebbenburg’s people. The same fear with which they’d met his father’s anger. A twist of guilt squirmed in his gut, but he smiled ruefully. “No doubt, you’re right, Finan.”</p><p>The hush fled in a cascade of babble as half the crowd broke into wide-eyed gossip. Uhtred shook his head, still smiling, and turned to offer his arm to Hild, who took it gladly, guiding him down the rampart to the stairs.</p><p>By the time they joined the others, Ragnar had appeared. He watched Uhtred’s approach from Gisela’s side, Stiorra once again in his arms. Uhtred was suddenly struck but how much his brother had been parenting his children since they’d taken the fort and by extension, how absent he himself had been. The guilt twisted tighter, but he reached for Stiorra who came gladly into his arms. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck and settled against him with a contented breath. </p><p>There was a light in Ragnar’s eyes, when Uhtred looked back up, and a brightness to his face that Uhtred wasn’t sure he’d seen since they’d left Dunholm. “Is it time to think about the future again, Little Brother?”</p><p>Uhtred blinked, realizing that they had made no plans together to take Eoferwic. He exhaled, feeling wrong-footed, but nodded. “It is.”</p><p>Ragnar grinned. “And about time too.” Uhtred opened his mouth, an apology sitting on his tongue, but Ragnar shook his head. “You have been as I was after we killed Kjartan. It is…hard to have completed a momentous task. It is hard to have suddenly fulfilled your purpose and be left without another. But it is good to remember that there are other purposes in life and so much more for both of us to do. To build.”</p><p>For the first time, since the night Ragnar gave him his oath, Uhtred knew it was true. Ragnar was right. There was so much more for them to do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Winchester</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Winchester had grown cold in the long months since Uhtred of Bebbenburg had left, Alfred thought, as he claimed a pew in the empty palace chapel. Or perhaps it was just Alfred who had grown cold. The pains in his belly had soothed a little, no longer quite as debilitating as they had been, but Alfred himself was no less weary for being in less pain. Beocca was gone, north with Uhtred, and so Alfred’s two closest confidants had left him. </p><p>He had not realized how much he did confide to Uhtred, even when he had not trust him, for the simple reason that he could speak plainly with Uhtred in a way that he could with no other ealdorman or advisor. Now, Uhtred was gone and Alfred’s confessor with him, and no guarantee either would ever return. That would have been wound enough, isolating and unsettling, as Alfred struggled to unite Mercia and Wessex without destabilizing either. It <i>was</i> wound enough, but it was compounded by the fact that he had also lost Aelswith, though she stood barely an arm’s length away from him in the throne room and mere inches during mass. </p><p>Those remained, though, the only two places that Aelswith would be near him. She had held fast to her promise to share no more of her life with him than she must to further their joint cause of a united England. She held herself apart from him, blamed him for the rift between them — with good reason, he would admit — and retreated from public life as much as possible. It was this last that wounded Alfred most deeply because it was in mourning for their daughter, who she believed to have been killed escaping from Beamfleot. </p><p>Her mourning for Aethelflaed had done even more damage to their union than her reaction to discovering Alfred’s supposed affair with Uhtred. Alfred could not tell her that Aethelflaed was well and if she ever discovered that he had kept it from her, he feared what she would do. If she ever found that it was Uhtred who smuggled her out of Beamfleot and away to the north, he was certain that she would try to kill the man in any way she could.</p><p>That damage had run so deep that Alfred had simply forced it from his mind, refused to dwell on the ache it left in his lungs. But burying this hurt as deep as could manage had left him cold, inside and out. He knew that people had regarded him as stern before, but now he was detached and frigid. Quicker to anger and indifferent. There were whispers in the taverns that it was because Uhtred had gone north, home to Bebbanburg. People exchange knowing glances over their jars of ale and murmured that his lover had left him. </p><p>Alfred sometimes wondered if it were true. Would he have allowed himself to sink into this ice, if Uhtred had still been in Winchester to aggravate him? Had Uhtred’s departure taken away some essential spark from him, some kernel of warmth that he needed to be whole? </p><p>He could not be certain, but what he did know was that it had left a gaping wound behind, as deep and aching as the one left by Aelswith, though not so tender or so raw. It edged his heart in longing and in grief, for the relationship they’d never truly had, for all the time he’d squandered in mistrust, and for Uhtred himself in all his insolent glory. Uhtred’s letter had not helped in that regard.</p><p>He knew that he should cling to hope, to Uhtred’s final promise, to <i>when I see you next, that is when I shall tell you that which you ache to hear</i>. Such hope, he thought, would make him stronger, would straighten his spine and firm his resolve, would plant a small seed of warmth. But the possibility that Uhtred loved him in return was drowned in the echoing rush of words that had led up to it. It was battered down and slipped away under the force of:<i>I will not tell you that I think of you fondly or at all. I will not tell you that I love you in return. This will likely give you pain. I will not apologize for that.</i></p><p>Surely if Uhtred’s final promise were true, if he had been telling Alfred that he loved him without saying the words, he would not cause him pain on purpose. He would not deprive Alfred of his last desperate wish upon their parting. And so, Alfred could come to only one conclusion. That Uhtred did not feel the same. That the Dane harbored no soft feelings at all for Alfred, not love nor even friendship. Perhaps, given the cruelty of his letter, perhaps Uhtred hated him. Perhaps that lake that Uhtred spoke of was loathing, not love. Even the idea of it was like a knife slipping between his ribs.</p><p>Alfred shook the thoughts away. It was useless speculation and he had resolved again and again not to give any more thought to Uhtred at all. He turned his eyes up to the crucifix hanging above the altar and exhaled softly. He was weak and could not keep that promise to himself. Like a child who prodded a cut to see if it still hurt, Alfred continually circled back to his worries about the Lord of Bebbenburg.</p><p>A rustle of cloth and soft footsteps drew him from his never-ending spiral and he glanced over his shoulder to see Father Pyrlig approaching. “Lord King, I apologize for interrupting your prayers, but there is a matter of some urgency.”</p><p>Alfred crossed himself and stood. “What is it?”</p><p>“Ealdorman Coenred is here, Lord, and he is accompanied by a Dane, a prisoner of his. A thief, he says, who trespassed onto Saxon lands and stole from one of you ealdormen. Only…”</p><p>Alfred was already moving, down the center aisle and out into the hallway, but he stopped. “Only?”</p><p>Father Pyrlig met his eyes, face grave. “It is Sihtric, Lord.”</p><p>Alfred frowned, even as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Sihtric was meant to be at Bebbenburg with Uhtred or in Eoferwic by now. Either way, he was not meant to be here, in Winchester, especially in custody of some kind. Alfred’s steps hurried, until he was striding through the halls. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d moved so quickly without pain, but if his guts hurt, he couldn’t feel them. </p><p>Sihtric was in chains, kneeling on the floor, when Alfred entered the throne room. Collared at the neck and wrists, he looked battered, but defiant. Coenred on the other hand was pacing in front of the dais, agitated and smug. Alfred took a breath as he crossed the room, trying to steady his racing heartbeat. “What is the meaning of this?”</p><p>Coenred snapped nearly to attention, his spine straightening with an audible crack. He spun to face Alfred, his face carefully controlled. Alfred felt a prickle of awareness at the back of his mind, but it refused to coalesce. </p><p>“Lord King, I come to you with a grievance and a gift.” His voice was strained, but even. He didn’t even glance at Sihtric, who was looking up at Alfred with confusion and anger in his eyes.</p><p>Alfred supposed that he himself had mistreated Uhtred often enough that one of Uhtred’s men wouldn’t necessarily trust him, even with the rumors flying around. “Explain yourself, Ealdorman.”</p><p>“Lord, I was on my way home to my estates in Mercia, when I stopped at the estate of an ealdorman of Wessex near the border. The lord wasn’t home, but I found this beast in his hall. He was sitting at the ealdorman’s table, eating his food and drinking his ale. When I attempted to eject him in response to this grievous affront, he struck me! I took him into custody and brought him directly to you.” Coenred seemed proud of himself. He clearly had not read the room well at all. Steapa, standing guard at the door, looked ready to tear off the Mercian’s head and Pyrlig, who had followed Alfred, was tense as a bowstring.</p><p>“You were at Coccham.” Alfred said, voice flat.</p><p>Coenred’s eyes widened. “Yes, Lord. How could you know that?”</p><p>Alfred could feel a muscle over his left eye twitch, but he fought not to curl his lip in disgust. He turned from Coenred without answering. “Sihtric, has he damaged you?”</p><p>Sihtric blinked and tilted his head, the anger receding a little. “Only my pride, Lord.”</p><p>Alfred allowed a hint of a smile. Coenred’s jaw dropped a little. “Lord, you know this Dane?” </p><p>He said the word ‘Dane’ with that same little twist of visceral darkness that Alfred had heard from him before. It tightened Alfred’s jaw. “Steapa, release him from those restraints.” When Steapa moved forward to comply, Alfred turned his eyes back to Coenred, who seemed to realize how badly this was going for him. “This man is Sihtric Kjartanson, sworn oathsman and personal guard to the man your father so admired at Ethandun, Uhtred Ragnarson of Bebbenburg. The estate at which you stopped, Coccham, belongs to Uhtred, who is currently away in the north. You accused Sihtric of being a thief. It is you, in fact, who has committed the crime of trespassing upon another man’s property and mistreating his people.”</p><p>Coenred’s eyes fluttered, before opening so wide that Alfred could see white all around the iris, and his hands twisted into the fabric of his tunic. “My Lord King, I did not know. I simply thought—“</p><p>“No, Lord Coenred, you did not think. You allowed blind hatred to cloud your judgement. In Wessex and indeed in Mercia, Danes and Saxons may live together in peace. There is no reason why they should not. We do not have a quarrel with those who follow the law and keep our peace, regardless of their origin. The only quarrel that I have is with those Danes who seek to destroy us. Sihtric clearly does not number among those, for he is a loyal servant to Uhtred and has proven himself to be a man of honor.” Alfred paused, watching Coenred’s face darken for a moment before the look was hidden away. </p><p>Alfred thought perhaps the puzzle of Ealdorman Coenred was piecing itself together, but too slowly. There was something here that Alfred was not seeing. </p><p>The ealdorman looked down at the floor, hiding his eyes. He fidgeted, obviously waiting for Alfred’s judgement. Alfred obliged. “You will return immediately to your estate. Send word to Ludeca that I wish him to join me for a time here in Winchester. You will then await my judgment in this matter. As Lord Uhtred is not here, I cannot yet consult with him as to his preferred course of action, given that the man you wronged was a member of his household. I will send word when a judgment has been made.”</p><p>Coenred bowed deeply, but did not raise his eyes. “Yes, Lord. I apologize for my ignorance, Lord.” He said, voice tight, and left the hall.</p><p>Alfred watched him go for a long moment, considering, but pushed it away for another time. He turned back to the Dane, who was no longer kneeling. “Sihtric, are you truly well? Was his account correct?”</p><p>Sihtric shrugged. “Mostly, Lord. I did lay hands on him, but to stop him trying to hit me. I knew he was a Lord, the way he dresses, so I knew I could not fight him.”</p><p>Alfred inclined his head, acknowledging the wisdom in that. “You did well in that. But why are you in Wessex? Is Uhtred back already? Has something happened?”</p><p>“Yes and no, Lord. Nothing had gone wrong, if that is what you mean, Lord. Lord Uhtred sent me with a message for you.”</p><p>Excitement bubbled in his belly, but it was quickly followed by a sour curl of fear. Uhtred’s last letter had condemned him to a misery of doubt. Would another message assuage the doubt or make it grow? Had Uhtred even written again or was the message verbal?</p><p>Alfred bade Sihtric follow him and asked Pyrlig to find one of the servants to bring them food and ale. He led Sihtric to the library, waving out the monks. When the room was empty, Alfred took a seat at the long table. Sihtric sat hesitantly across from him, but only at Alfred’s insistence. </p><p>“And what is this message?”</p><p>Sihtric inhaled, obviously centering himself, and said, “Lord Uhtred wanted you to know that he and the Earl Ragnar will be taking Eoferwic just after Easter. He intends to put Guthred to the sword and to enjoy every moment of it, for all the man is his brother-in-law. And that Ragnar has sworn to him so there is no confusion or division on that front.  He also said to tell you that the lady Gisela is with child again and nearly ready to give birth.” The last made Sihtric wrinkle his nose. “I’m not sure why the last is important, but he told me to make sure you knew.”</p><p>Alfred smiled. More children meant more alliances. If one of the Scottish Kings had a child near in age to Uhtred’s youngest, perhaps a match could be made. It would depend entirely on the child’s sex, of course, but with any luck, it would be a girl. He wondered how Stiorra was fairing and whether Uhtred had sought to have her educated. They’d need to make provisions for that, if she was to come to the marriage with his son as an equal partner. They’d have some years yet, nearly nine if he remembered Stiorra’s age right, but it was worth considering now.</p><p>“Thank you for the message, Sihtric. I appreciate the news. And anything else you’d be willing to share. We don’t get much from the Northumbria this far south and my eyes and ears do not extend into Uhtred’s Bebbenburg. Is…Is he well?” </p><p>Alfred wasn’t quite sure what made him hesitate in asking, but it felt revealing somehow for Sihtric to know that he cared enough to ask. It shouldn’t, but it did. He swallowed against a dry throat, but was saved from asking any more uneasy questions by the arrival of Sihtric’s meal.</p><p>A maid came in with a plate of food for the Dane and a small bowl of fruit for Alfred. Behind her another girl carried a flagon of ale and two cups. Alfred watched them, trying to push back the swelling tide of emotion in his chest. When they were gone, he turned back to Sihtric who seemed to be waiting for permission to eat. Alfred smiled, rueful, and took a berry. It was all the cue the boy needed to dig into his meat and cheese. </p><p>“Lord Uhtred has been…out of sort since we took Bebbenburg, though Steapa knew that. It lasted months. All his people worried themselves sick about it, but the Bebbenburg people, the ones who’d lived there all along, they all said that it was like the old Lord Uhtred come back again. Uhtred the Elder that is…or…our Uhtred’s Saxon father. This Saxon naming is very confusing.”</p><p>Alfred laughed, a short bark of mirth, before schooling himself. “It is likely for the land grants. There is a document somewhere that states that Bebbanburg belongs to Uhtred and so each father names his heir Uhtred in order for the document to hold true.”</p><p>Sihtric’s eyes went very wide during this explanation. He swallowed his mouthful and gaped for a moment. “But that’s…stupid. Why not just change the piece of paper? Or throw it away?”</p><p>Alfred considered answering properly, but Sihtric was even more a Dane than Uhtred was and likely would not change his mind. “It is custom and unlikely to change. Our Uhtred, as you say, has done the same and named his son after himself.” He paused, thinking back on Sihtric’s answer to his question. “But Uhtred’s father was a hard man, by all accounts, cold and uncaring.”</p><p>Sihtric nodded. “Yes, Lord. Apparently he was. But then, so has our Uhtred been, from when we took the fort until near the coming of spring. Nearly enough time for the Lady Gisela to have her baby. They were expecting it any day when I left to come south. But he’s calmed again. Not like his father any more. And the townsfolk grow to love him already, just as the people of Coccham did. He smiles again and laughs sometimes. There is a sadness in him that I don’t understand, but he is more himself now.”</p><p>Alfred nodded, exhaling. Steapa had described the same to him when he’s returned to Winchester and Alfred had been uneasy about the news ever since. For Uhtred had never been a cold man, too fired with rage and love and passion for that. It had been unsettling to imagine him cold and cut off from those around him. The very thought sat heavy in Alfred’s chest, like a weight pressing on him. It was a relief to have it lifted.</p><p>“Lord?” Sihtric’s voice broke through Alfred’s revery. He looked up. “Lord King, Lord Uhtred told me to carry back a letter if you wished to send one.”</p><p>The question sent a shiver down Alfred’s spine. He could not tell if it was from warmth or chill for he abruptly felt both flushed and freezing. Letters between them were a dangerous endeavor. His own had been perhaps too honest and had clearly upset Uhtred. Uhtred’s return letter, sent with Steapa, had struck Alfred like a blade into his lungs. </p><p>But of course, he would not be able to resist the opportunity. He nodded to Sihtric. “I appreciate the chance. I will. Feel free to see the palace healer for your injuries and stay until you are well again. Those bruises on the Roman road will invite more trouble.”</p><p>“Thank you, Lord!” Sihtric said earnestly. “The ealdorman was not very strong and so they should have gone in a day or two.”</p><p>Alfred nodded, filing that tidbit of information away for later and turning already to the letter he wished to write. He would, perhaps, also write one to Beocca.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a little early because I'm not going have access to my computer tomorrow or Sunday.</p><p>Also, a note on spelling: I've seen Bebbenburg spelled with an 'e' a bunch, but I just noticed that it's spelled with an 'a' in the books. I might at some point go back and change them all to an 'a', but for now I might use both by accident.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The snows had already begun to thaw and the air was warm with an early  burst of spring when Gisela gave birth to a sweet baby girl with lungs like her father and her mother’s eyes. They named her Tora, to give her the blessing of the gods. Gisela, exhausted from the labor but well enough, took the baby into her arms to rock her, as Uhtred slipped himself behind her and wrapped his own arms around them both.</p><p>Gisela relaxed into the hard line of his body, content. Uhtred held her as he examined his newborn daughter. She had a thin cloud of dark hair and the wrinkliest hands that Uhtred had ever seen. She was, he thought, possibly the most beautiful baby ever born and would grow up to break hearts and possibly necks. The thought made him smile.</p><p>Watching her eyes fluttered open and then slid shut again, he thought of Stiorra and her coming betrothal to the aetheling of Wessex, of Young Uhtred and whether they could find him a bride among the daughters of the Northumbrian Lords. He wondered if Eochaid of Strathclyde had a son young enough to be a match for Tora. </p><p>It would do well to make peace with the Northern Britons, who quarreled with the Saxons but did at least follow the old religion. An alliance with Eochaid would go a long way toward ensuring that. East Anglia was too short-lived a kingdom; trying to marry Tora to Guthrum’s grandson would be a waste. The Welsh crowded his southern border, but he was not willing to give his baby girl to such savages, especially Christian ones. Domnall, the self-styled King of Lothian had a young son who might be a good match, bringing the province back under Bernician and therefore Northumbrian control.</p><p>He wondered if Gisela had a preference for Briton over Scot. Teaching Tora to speak the Cumbric language might be easier than trying to teach her the Scots-Gaelic that the people of Lothian spoke, but finding a trustworthy tutor for either would be a monumental task.</p><p>Tora’s little nose twitched and Uhtred blinked, suddenly horrified by his thoughts. Here he sat, with his beautiful wife in his arms, staring down at his brand new baby daughter, and all he could think about was alliances and power struggles. </p><p>Was this what he was now? Before he was a father, a husband, a <i>man</i>, he was a king to play with the lives of his people, of his family, as though they meant nothing? Was that what Tora would be to him, what Stiorra and Young Uhtred would be to him? Pieces on a game board? Bargaining chips to settle conflicts? He felt a twist of nausea in his guts and swallowed against a tight throat. Was this how Alfred thought?  </p><p>But Alfred was a good father, wasn’t he? Uhtred had always thought so. He loved his children and considered their happiness in his decisions, didn’t he? Aethelred had been a poor choice, but even Uhtred would admit the match had been an appealing one at the time. There was no way of knowing what a turd than man would prove to be. </p><p>But was Alfred considering Edward’s future happiness in his plan to wed him to Stiorra? Was Uhtred considering Stiorra’s happiness? Has he spoken to Gisela about the match yet? He couldn’t remember and he couldn’t decide if Stiorra would go willingly to rule Wessex at Edward’s side, though not for many, man years to come if the gods were generous. Was her happiness more important than the future her marriage would build? </p><p>Uhtred had married for love the second time, but the first time? That’s what marriage was, wasn’t it? A bargain to be made, for money or land or safety or power. It was why he’d married Mildrith. They’d been happy for a time, before life and tragedy and Uhtred’s pagan beliefs had torn them apart. Uhtred could not regret it, but it was evidence of how fragile love could be. So a political bargain might be the better bet, and Stiorra could find happiness on her own, in or out of the royal bed. </p><p>She, like Tora, would be given away in marriage at some point, that much was certain. These were plans he would need to make eventually either way, for all his children. Because, like it or not, he was about to become a king and his children prince and princesses. Plans were all the more important now that that was true. It churned in him: dread, guilt, love, and a brutal, devastating hope that someday soon his dreams for Northumbria would be realized.</p><p>If this was how Alfred’s felt about England, it was no wonder he was plagued by belly pains and flux. Uhtred himself was queasy with it, though he was doing nothing more than sitting on a fresh mattress with his exhausted wife and new baby in his arms.</p><p>He shook the thoughts away, resolving to focus on the moment and leave thoughts of the future for later. He turned his eyes again to Tora and felt a soft smile stretched across his face. She really did have Gisela’s eyes. He hoped that she looked as much like her mother and Stiorra did. His eyes wondered up to his wife, who was smiling at him. “She will be well loved, until she is grown enough to marry. You are a good father to them and you will be better still when we can settle in one place for more than a few months. Will Bebbenburg be the new capital?”</p><p>Uhtred sighed. It was a well-worn path for him, though he not discussed it with anyone yet. “I do not think that Bebbenburg could be the capital. It is too far north and too isolated for year-round occupation. But…if we split our time between here and Eoferwic, I think that might work. Spend the summer months here and the winter in Eoferwic. The Vikings are more likely to raid in summer and so being in a fort during the raiding season would guarantee that they couldn’t capture the capital.” Her eyebrows rose and her eyes widened. Uhtred smiled. “I have thought about it, you know. There is not reason to look so surprised.”</p><p>She smiled, a little sheepish. “Of course you have. Especially if this was your plan all along.” She gave him a pointed look and it was his turn to look sheepish. “I am surprised that you would be willing to leave here. You have fought so long to return.”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged, unsure how to articulate what he was feeling. “It was never about living here. It wasn’t even really about Bebbenburg. I’ve always hated it here. But it is mine. It was the only thing, beside my name, that my bastard Saxon father ever gave me. It is <i>mine</i>. But Coccham will likely always be more home to me now than Bebbenburg is.” </p><p>He knew his voice colored with melancholy whenever he discussed his estate in Wessex. He couldn’t help it. It was one of the biggest regrets he had about agreeing to Alfred’s plan for Northumbria, but there was no help for it now. A warm hand curled into his hair and he glanced back at Gisela to find her watching him with soft eyes.</p><p>“We’ll get back there someday. I promise you.” </p><p>He smiled and kissed her. A rustling of cloth from across the room had him pulling back to see who had dared disturb his wife in her recovery. Stiorra and Young Uhtred both appeared in the doorway. They were wide-eyed and tearful from listening to their mother’s moans and curses, but approached readily enough when she held out a hand to them. “Come meet your baby sister. Come meet Tora, my loves.”</p><p>Stiorra looked fascinated at the tiny human in her mother’s arms, but Young Uhtred wrinkled his nose. Uhtred cuffed him round the head gently. “She’s your little sister and you’ll protect her always, boy. After your mother and I are gone, you will have to protect each other then. When the spinner’s pull at the threads of your lives, you must always protect your family.”</p><p>“There are no stronger bonds than family. Some families you are born into and some find you, but you must guard both jealously,” said a deep voice from the doorway. </p><p>Uhtred looked up to see Ragnar standing there with an overwhelming tenderness in his eyes, but a serious expression on his family. For a moment, it was as though Ragnar The Elder stood there, smiling down at his adopted son with pride in his warm eyes. The memory pricked at Uhtred’s heart, but made him smile. He nodded at Ragnar, waving him into the room. “Your uncle’s right, son.”</p><p>Young Uhtred, who wanted in every way to be just like his uncle, stared up at him with wide-eyed solemnity, before looking back down at the baby. He lifted a hand and touched Tora lightly on the tip of her nose. “Hello, Tora. I’m your brother Uhtred and this is Stiorra, your sister. We’ll take care of you.”</p><p>Uhtred ducked his head, attempting to hide his smile and his abruptly glossy eyes in Gisela’s hair, but Ragnar chuckled, watching him with a grin. Gisela, feeling him press his lips to the back of her head, nuzzled back into him and let her eyes drift shut. The room was warm and close, and got closer when Thyra and Beocca both appeared, Finan peeking over their shoulders. </p><p>Uhtred blinked the dampness from his eyes and felt the last lingering threads of chill in his chest melt away. Life, he thought, was warm for once, filled with love and family. He would clasp these moment as tightly as he could and locked them away to savor, because they would not last long.</p><p>Soon they’d ride out to kill his brother-in-law. The very thought sat heavily between his lungs. It was true that Guthred had sold him into slavery and was responsible for Halig’s death, for which Uhtred would never forgive him, but Uhtred was beginning to wonder if he could truly blame Guthred for it. He was a king on an unstable throne, who had a snake hissing into his ear and wolves at his door. If Uhtred had been in his position, would he have done the same? </p><p>Not to Halig though, never to Halig, for the man had been no threat to Guthred, except that he would spread word of Guthred’s betrayal. It was a dark and tangled knot and it weighed on Uhtred more by the day, as the moment of decision drew nearer.</p><p>But it was still weeks away and Uhtred was determined to enjoy these final moments of peace before they slipped away.</p><p>And slip away they did. Not even a week after Gisela gave birth, Erik cornered Uhtred in the courtyard and asked about Uhtred’s plans, no doubt anxious for the truth of Aethelflaed’s identity to be known. Alfred’s daughter had been living in disguise, as Uhtred’s mute bastard son Eadric, since they’d left Coccham last summer and the pretense was beginning to strain them all. It grew harder and harder to remember who knew and who did not, and so not to give away the game.</p><p>It was particularly difficult for Erik who was, by all appearances, sleeping with a boy of barely fourteen. Whispers followed him everywhere and Uhtred had seen him grit his teeth more than once to stop himself from snapping. So far, he’d curbed the need to defend his honor, but there was no telling how long that was going to last.</p><p>That was an impulse Uhtred knew well, given the nonsense that had plagued him the previous summer, at the beginning of this madcap plan of Alfred’s. Those murmurs had faded mostly. It was, after all, difficult to whisper that your Lord was sleeping with a king when the two were nearly four hundred miles apart. </p><p>Though whenever the occasional trader came to Bebbenburg and Uhtred asked for news of Wessex and of Alfred, there would be sly, knowing looks exchanged. The whispers would surge for a day or two before subsiding again. It didn’t help this cycle that Gisela found it and Uhtred’s annoyance with it hilarious. </p><p>At the beginning, in Dunholm and when she’d first arrived in Bebbanburg, Gisela had teased him about his royal lover, but she’d fallen silent over the winter, no doubt in response to Uhtred’s queer mood, his coldness. But since the day in the ramparts with Hild, Gisela had taken to teasing him again. He knew it shouldn’t bother him, that some of the others teased him too, but Gisela’s comments never failed to bring a blush to his cheeks and a scowl to his face. Finan found his blushes and his scowls uproariously funny, a reaction that Uhtred was deeply bitter about. So Uhtred understood Erik’s frustration and his anger, especially because the damage being done to his reputation was far and away worse than that being done to Uhtred’s.</p><p>So Uhtred’s focus turned toward Eoferwic, toward the stability and the peace that would come with taking Guthred’s seat of power. Toward the moment when Aethelflaed’s presence could be revealed, Erik’s reputation could be restored, and she and Erik could be wed. And the view, like the one from the ramparts, was clear. Hope grew in Uhtred’s chest, hope for the future of Britain, hope for peace between Saxon and Dane, hope for a strong Northumbria that would no longer fall into chaos every handful of years.</p><p>And a quiet hope that he would soon see Alfred again, though he would deny that he desired it as strongly as the others until his dying breath. </p><p>Spring, after all, is a season of possibility in all things.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments are lovely and so are you.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Winchester</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Writing his letter to Uhtred took longer than Alfred cared to admit. Every time he sat to compose it, he was overtaken by a feverish need to confess every part of his soul to the man. Isolation and loneliness had obviously taken a greater toll than Alfred realized and sharing this pain with Uhtred felt like his only way to exorcise it. And yet, something, some final shred of dignity or mistrust or fear made him shy from it. And so he discarded nearly two dozen attempts before realizing that planning was no use nor was trying to guard his heart. </p><p>He could not stop himself from spilling every hidden wish and bleeding wound. Eventually, he simply stopped trying. The final letter was longer than he wanted, but the idea of rewriting it again made his hand cramp and his guts sour. He could not remember what it said, but neither could he bring himself to re-read it. The very thought made nausea surge up his throat. So he swallowed, folded the letter, and pressed his seal to the wax. </p><p>His delay had detained Sihtric’s return north by an extra couple days, but gave the boy time to heal fully before his departure. Alfred himself saw Sihtric out of the palace and watched him mount his horse in the marketplace, but he could not watch him go. It was too raw, the severing of this final, fleeting connection to Uhtred, too much like closure for a grief that he refused to relinquish, like the loss of a hope he couldn’t abandon. </p><p>Instead, Alfred moved away from the arches, meaning to return inside, but was met with the figure of his wife. He froze and stared at her, off balance by the unexpected encounter, distant though it was. She stood across the courtyard, watching him with a dark glance and curled shoulders. For the first time in many months, though, there was no hate in her eyes. Alfred wondered quite how pathetic he must look to rob her of her malice. He swallowed and attempted a smile, but Aelswith did not return it. She simply pursed her lips and walked away. </p><p>Shaking his head, Alfred shrugged the moment off. He did not have time to wonder at his wife’s curious behavior, when there was a thousand things to be done and still the problem of Ealdorman Coenred to deal with. The man clearly had plans of his own, plans which involved the Danes somehow, and for which he felt the need to have Alfred on the Mercian throne. It did not sit well with Alfred to be a pawn in someone else’s game, especially when he did not quite understand game board he was on, but it had given him something he wanted, so he would not complain about it. He did intend though to discover all he could about Coenred and his connections. He’d start by pressing Ludeca for information once he arrived in Winchester. The messenger he’d sent to the ealdorman’s estate, in case Coenred had failed to deliver his request, should have come and gone by now, which meant that Ludeca would likely be arriving by the end of the following week.</p><p>So immersed in his concerns was Alfred that he did not notice Odda waiting for him when he passed through the throne room until the man cleared his throat. Alfred flinched slightly, but looked up to find his advisor and old friend standing to the left of the throne with a pained smile on his face. “Lord.”</p><p>“Odda, you have need of me?”</p><p>Odda nodded and shifted on his feet. “There are peasants at the gates, wishing to be heard, Lord. A great many of them.”</p><p>Alfred frowned, eyes narrowing. It was not a day for petitions and so those wishing to be heard would normally be made to wait. If Odda was bringing it to his attention… “How many? And from where?”</p><p>Odda swallowed, his throat bobbing, but the pained smile did not leave his face. Whatever was coming next was clearly something Alfred was not going to enjoy hearing. “Last count from the guards, Lord, about half an hour ago, was two hundred and more are appearing every hour. They’re coming from Mercia. Along the Welsh border. King Hywel has begun raiding the Mercian coast and borderlands, Lord. Killing Christians, robbing churches of their sacraments and relics, slaughtering everyone he encounters.”</p><p>Alfred’s frown slid into a scowl. They had been left in relative peace for too long and he’d been expecting some attack, but not from the Welsh. “Has he forgotten we are a Christian people? Why would he behave in such a way? He ought to be raiding the Danes if he must go raiding.”</p><p>The pained smile deepened, bordering on a grimace, and Odda shifted on his feet. His eyes were skipping, landing here and then there, but never lighting long. His shoulders were tenser than Alfred had seen off the battlefield. An awkward silence fell over the room as Alfred watched him struggle for words. Taking a deep breath, Alfred finally gritted out, “Say it. Whatever it is that is troubling you so, Odda. Just say it.”</p><p>“The people are saying…” Odda swallowed again. His eyes landed on Alfred’s face for the briefest moment, before averting over Alfred’s shoulder. Alfred’s  own eyes widened at the fear that surfaced in the man’s face. “It is said that King Hywel no longer considers Wessex to be a Christian kingdom, Lord.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyes narrowed and a chill spilled down his spine, leaving his entire body cold. There was ice in his veins and a terrible thought forming in his mind. “Why?”</p><p>“The peasants say that he has heard the rumors that her king lays with pagan men, Lord King.”</p><p>Alfred exhaled, his growing suspicious confirmed. He clenched his jaw. A slow building tidal wave of white-hot rage was beginning to swell in him, and with it, a buzzing energy that Alfred couldn’t contain. He felt strung like a bow, any moment to snap from the tension in his body. </p><p>He turned away from Odda, movements sharp and slightly disjointed, to pace the dais. “Hywel ap Cadell has been an absolute pig of a man since the first time I encountered him. The day he is so pure in heart as to cast a stone at me is the day that Uhtred of Bebbenburg becomes a monk.” Alfred paced back, trying to control the rage that threatened to consume him. “This will not stand. I will drag him from his throne if that is what it takes, but this will not stand.”</p><p>Odda blinked at this and his mouth twitched. He coughed. “Lord, it will not. It is a challenge that cannot go unmet. If you are ever to dispel the rumor—”</p><p>Alfred snorted, his shoulders relaxing. The rage subsided to a low simmer of sour acid in his belly. “Uhtred has been gone for nearly seven months now and it has not faded. It seems it is no longer possible to dispel that rumor, Odda. If both Aelswith and I swearing before the witan did not dispel it, nothing will.” He shook his head. “But that is neither here nor there. Hywel cannot be allowed to overstep his bounds. He cannot be allowed to kill our people or take our relics. The man is hardly Christian himself, given the rampant paganism that mixes deeply with Welsh practice, and he dares judge me.” He paused and took a breath. “How many raids, so far? Do we know?”</p><p>Odda shrugged. “At least a dozen, but likely closer to a score or more. No one seems quite sure.”</p><p>Alfred nodded, straightening his spine. “Fetch me Steapa and send for Sigebriht of Kent. We will answer Hywel’s violence with its like.”</p><p>“Lord.” Odda said, finally sounding reassured. </p><p>He turned to go, but Alfred reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. Odda met his gaze finally. “My plans were peaceful. I had thoughts about East Anglia, but not until Aethelstan passed on. But now? I will rest Hywel’s throne from his cold, dead hands. Let him see how he enjoys the consequences of his breaking our peace.” </p><p>Odda nodded, exhaling, and left to carry out Alfred’s commands. And so, Alfred thought watching him go, war comes to Wessex. A surge of anticipation mixed in with the rage simmering in his guts. </p><p>War comes to Wessex, and England grows closer by the day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter is a little short, so I decided to post it alongside chapter 3. Also, I'm just anxious to post a particular chapter and so I'm getting ahead of myself. I've never been a particularly patient woman. I'm not sorry.</p><p>Comments are a beautiful thing. I'd love to see one :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This growing hope and Erik’s questions were why the day of the equinox found Uhtred, not raising a glance to the return of the sun, but in  Bebbanburg’s Great Hall, standing at its newly carved circular council table with a giant roll of parchment under his arm. Uhtred had commissioned the table so it might to sit in the center of the hall, round and ornately carved, made from triangular wedges, which could be disassembled as needed. The carvings depicted the birth of Uhtred’s Northumbria: the Viking raids, the Danish arrival in Britian, the first battle at Eoferwic where his Saxon father had died, the battles at Cynuit Hill, Ethandun, Dunholm, Beamfleot, and Bebbenburg. Each was a piece of the story, a piece of the puzzle they were making. </p><p>Ubba had died at Cynuit Hill. Guthrum lost at Ethandun. Kjartan was killed at Dunholm. Haeston and the Thurgilson brother were defeated at Beamfleot. Uhtred and Ragnar retook Bebbenburg and the Usurper had gotten what he deserved. Each death and each defeat shaped the future of Northumbria, shifting the political landscape. Without each battle, Uhtred wouldn’t now be in a position to unite the three seats of power, the three ancient kingdoms. The table told this story, much the same as Alfred’s chronicle told his. </p><p>There were more wedges to be added as Uhtred’s council grew and changed. Each piece would be carved with another part of the story: the next battle at Eoferwic, Uhtred’s coronation, Stiorra’s marriage to Edward, and whatever else might shape the land. Uhtred himself was in each carving, a thread in the tale, but he was not the focus. It was not the merely story of his life. It was more important than that.</p><p>He looked down at it now, impressed by the craftsmanship, but filled with a fierce pride and a burning hope at the realization of all it had taken to bring them here. He finally looked up, taking in the faces around, his friends and family who had stood at his side through all his trials. Ragnar and Erik and Brida, Clapa and Finan and Osferth and Hild, Beocca and Gisela all gathered around at the table. His council, his family, the future of their kingdom. He was certain there were no better hands than these into which he could entrust the future.</p><p>He took a breath, content and anticipatory, and unrolled the large scroll that he’d been carrying under his arm. It was a map of Eoferwic and the surrounding countryside, even more detailed than the ones that he and Alfred had used in Winchester and twice the size. Everyone at the table stretched up to get a look at it. </p><p>Uhtred exhaled, cracked his neck, and looked around at them all. “We will be marching on Eoferwic soon. Maybe five weeks? Just after Easter, once the first proper thaws begin. We need a plan and we need to know what we’re facing. What are the biggest challenges we’ll need to overcome?”</p><p>No one spoke for a long moment as tension began to coil in the air. Finally, Clapa cleared his throat. Uhtred turned to him, surprise flickering through him, for Clapa was not a talkative man, nor was he known as a great thinker. “Lord,” He said. “Even with all the men that we had to take Bebbenburg, we are still outnumbered by Guthred’s forces. Maybe two or three to one, if his numbers are the same as they were.”</p><p>“It would be easy to assume that he’s lost men. It’s been nearly five years since then, but I wouldn’t risk relying on it.” Uhtred said slowly, considering. Most of the men of Winchester had stayed through the winter, would quite possibly never returned to Wessex at all, and Ragnar’s men were a reliable force, but Clapa was right. “Guthred’s men are those I trained myself. Add to that the fyrds of Cumbraland and what he can call up from Deira. They worked poorly together to begin with and adding the men of Deira to the mix will not help. None of his men were commanders, but there are warriors enough. His household guard, especially, if they’ve continued running the drills I gave them.”</p><p>“Deira?” Hild asked, frowning down at the map. </p><p>Uhtred opened his mouth to answer, but Beocca beat him to it. “When Uhtred says that there are three seats of power in Northumbria, what he means is there are three kingdoms that were merged together, each with its own capital: Bebbenburg in Bernicia, Dunholm in Rheged, and Eoferwic in Deira.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded. “My ancestors were kings in Bernicia, before there was a Northumbria. It’s one of the reasons that Guthred was afraid of me. I have a better claim to the throne than he does. His ancestors were farming in the dirt and sailing around Denmark, when mine were ruling here. Add to that the fact that Cumbraland is barely a hundred years old, carved out from the other kingdoms by a greedy warlord. But, since Ragnar the Fearless and Ubba and Ivar the Boneless took Eoferwic years ago, the fyrds of Deira have been a scattered mess. There’s no way of knowing if they’ll fight or how many men are even left to fight. There have been too many raiding Danes in that area. The passed twenty years have not been kind to Deira.”</p><p>“This is nonsense.” Brida scowled. “Who cares who has the better claim? You’re taking it. Like a Viking. And anyway the question isn’t how strong they are or how well they fight. It isn’t even how many they are. The question is will they fight for The Turd King?”</p><p>Uhtred frowned, confusion darkening his features. It was Gisela though that voiced his thoughts. “There is no way to know and so we must prepare as though they will.”</p><p>There was a murmur of agreement around the table. Brida’s anger and her disdain, which had simmered all through the winter, seemed about to boil over, but Ragnar shook his head. “Not necessarily. If we send a man or two among them, to speak to them…Eoferwic is not so far from Bebbenburg, less than a week’s easy riding. We could have spies there and back before we march. And he will know that you’ve taken Bebbenburg, which means the fyrds will be called as soon as the hard frosts are done. He will not want to be caught unaware. It would be good to gauge their commitment.” Ragnar was speaking to the group, but he watched Uhtred with bright eyes. Brida was nodding, her rage subsiding into satisfaction.</p><p>Uhtred chewed his lip. Ragnar had a point. They were never going to have surprise on their side. As soon as he’d taken Bebbenburg, with the Lord of Dunholm at his side, Guthred had to have known that he was next. It had been too late in the autumn by then and Uhtred hadn’t trusted his hold over his birthright to march immediately on Eoferwic, but Guthred had likely either guessed that or been told it. He was never a stupid man, just a gullible one. So the fyrds would be gathering at Eoferwic now or very soon…And if they could send the right men, it wouldn’t need to be a matter of spying, but of sowing doubt. They might be able to convince some of the men to turn on Guthred, especially the household guard. Even if they didn’t desert outright, they might turn during the battle or they might simply slip away from the army altogether. </p><p>But who could walk among an enemy army unnoticed? Who could carry the seeds of doubt to both the Saxons and the Danes who fought for Guthred? Uhtred blinked, an idea beginning to form. “Osferth,” he said, voice thoughtful and slow. “You’re an unassuming man. How is your Danish?”</p><p>Ragnar grinned, seeing immediately where Uhtred’s mind had gone, but Brida was back to scowling. Osferth himself flinched at the question and turned wide eyes on Uhtred. “My…Danish, lord? I haven’t…that is…”</p><p>Uhtred, sighed and rolled his eyes skyward, touching the hammer at his throat. The gods save him from inept liars. “I know that you’ve been learning to speak Danish, baby monk. You perk up like a dog on scent whenever anyone speaks it near you. I want to know how far along it is.”</p><p>Osferth flushed as everyone turned to look at him. He kept his eyes on the maps in front of them, avoiding Uhtred’s amused gaze, and mumbled something too low to hear. Uhtred shook his head, a frown forming. “Osferth, the truth. Now.”</p><p>“…I can understand when you and Sihtric speak together, Lord, but I have trouble when it is you and Earl Ragnar. Why do you ask?” </p><p>Uhtred hummed, thinking that perhaps that would be good enough, and ignored the question. “We’ll see. We’ll table the spying for the moment. It doesn’t actually solve the problem of our numbers.”</p><p>“Lord?” </p><p>Erik was more tentative than Uhtred had ever heard him. Gone was the towering warlord, the powerful Earl with his brother at his shoulder and a thousand men at his command. That man had likely vanished into the hole under the floor of Uhtred’s Hall at Coccham or perhaps into the ground with his dead brother, who Uhtred himself had sent to Odin’s corpse-hall. Uhtred wasn’t sure he liked the change. That towering warlord would have made a powerful ally and a strong voice of council. But what was done could not be undone, as Ragnar’s grandfather Ravn used to say, and so Uhtred pushed the thought away and jerked his chin for Erik to speak. Ragnar and Brida both shifted in their seats, as did Hild, all not doubting remembering Erik’s relationship with Eadric and none of them pleased with it.</p><p>But Uhtred, as the boy’s supposed father, had never said a word against it or Erik himself, and so none of them could raise a complaint. It all gave Uhtred a headache if he thought about it too long and he refused to even consider what the truth was going to do when Aethelflaed’s identity was finally revealed.</p><p>“Lord, could you not put out a call to the men of Bernicia? Not a demand, but a request for any fighters that they can spare? Offer a small sum of silver to entice them?”</p><p>Uhtred nodded, a flicker a pleasure going through him, both at a viable plan and at Erik’s willingness to suggest it. Maybe he had been taken by a queer mood over the winter too and merely need time to thaw, Uhtred thought, hopeful.</p><p>“It is too soon to call up the fyrds, Uhtred. They will not come. You haven’t been Lord long enough.” Father Beocca scowled at Erik as he said it, though his voice was calm.</p><p>Uhtred shook his head. “I wasn’t going to try to call the fyrds. I have seen what happens when reluctant men are sent to war and so have you, Beocca. You lose half your army to the night. And it will be planting season soon, but Erik makes a good suggestion. If we ask for fighters instead of demanding every able bodied man, we might swell our numbers a little. Even fifty men is better than none.” Uhtred glanced first at Ragnar, who nodded reluctantly, and then to Gisela, who smiled. “Finan, gather some of the old guards and take them into the countryside. See how many men you can dig up.”</p><p>Finan nodded with a grin. He had always been a man of action and sitting around in the fort all winter had not sat well with him. Not that there wasn’t plenty of work to be done to restore it to its former glory, but construction had never been a skill of Finan’s. “Aye, Lord. I’d be happy to.”</p><p>Uhtred returned his grin for a moment, before turning his eyes back on the maps. “Numbers will be our greatest problem. And feeding the men will certainly not be easy, but beyond that…” He trailed off, his eyes tracing over the tracks they could use to march on the city.</p><p>“Uhtred, what of a repeat of last time?” Beocca asked, fingers twitching in the folds of his robes.</p><p>Uhtred shook his head, trying to dredge up memories of the battle. He’d been barely eleven. He remembered Ravn telling him of it, but Ravn was blind and so it would all have been second-hand accounts at best. He wished quite suddenly that his Danish father still lived. He swallowed down the surge of grief, and shook his head again. “It’s been twenty years since then. The walls will have deteriorated even more, especially since they were without a king for a stretch. But if they do retreat inside the city and bar the gates, we do not have the men for a sustained siege.” Uhtred paused, considering. “But much of Guthred’s army is Saxon and unaccustomed to raiding, which would mean they’d be easier to prevent or dispatch.”</p><p>Hild was frowning, her eyes worried. “This seems impossible, Uhtred, no matter which version of event occurs. Is it wise to even attempt it?”</p><p>Ragnar jumped in before Uhtred could even begin to formulate an answer. “It is the only wise course, Hild.” Ragnar’s voice was earnest and Brida at his side was scowling darkly again. “If we allow Guthred to remain on the throne sof Deira and Cumbraland, if we allow him to retain the third major seat of power in the north, he will continue gathering men. Perhaps rally Danes to his cause or perhaps get reinforcements from Mercia. He—“</p><p>“Not Mercia.” Uhtred shook his head again. “That avenue is not open to him.”</p><p>This shut everyone up for a moment. They all turned to stare at Uhtred. Even Gisela was frowning. “Why not Mercia?” she asked. “Is it not a Christian kingdom? Would they not aid a Christian King?”</p><p>A grin was curling at Uhtred’s mouth, one he could not contain. “Alfred has been crowned King of Mercia. He will not send Guthred aid.”</p><p>Brida scoffed at this, though the others seemed convinced. “And you can know that? He worships the nailed god and so he helps others who do the same.”</p><p>Uhtred’s grin widened and he met Brida’s scornful gaze. “Alfred will not side with Guthred over me.”</p><p>The soft confidence and complete conviction in his voice sent Brida to her feet, a snarl on her face now. “Why? Because you warm his bed? You think humping will sway him from his god? The King of Wessex is, before anything else, Christian and always will be. You panting after him doesn’t change that.”</p><p>Her words had half the table bristling and the other half shrinking away from the inevitable explosion. Uhtred’s grin turned savage, but did not waiver.  No anger rose in him over her disdain. “Brida, you speak of things you do not understand. You’ve met him once or twice. You were his prisoner and so you think you know him. You do not. Alfred, before anything else, before faith or family or love, before he is a Christian or a man, Alfred is ambitious and he is ruthless. In a war between Guthred and me, Alfred is given two choices. Someone he does not trust and does not know or someone he knows very well indeed and can trust with his life. Which choice would you make?”</p><p>She snorted, her lips curling in disgust. “You are blinded by what you feel for him. You are naive and you are thinking with your cock.”</p><p>He wondered how a relatively calm war council could have gone so disastrously off topic. The well of anger, of hatred, and of scorn in Brida was too deep for this to be a sudden thing, brought on by the conversation. He wondered how long she had been waiting to speak this way to him and how cold he must have been all winter for her to hesitate this long.</p><p>He huffed, a sharp exhale through his nose. “Beocca, you know Alfred very well. You were his confessor for many years and will obviously not be blinded by your cock over him.” Uhtred’s tone was fairly dripping with scorn.</p><p>Beocca nodded, not waiting for Uhtred to ask the question. “I do know him well and so I know that in war, Alfred will always side with Uhtred. He always has and always will. He did at Aesc’s Hill, when Uhtred was little more than a stranger to him. Brida, you were there yourself and witnessed it. He did again at Somerset and at Ethandun. He chose to follow Uhtred’s advice at Beamfleot or was planning to when we came north. But it is not just in times of war. I believe that in one fashion or another, Alfred will always choose Uhtred. Regardless of who sits on the other side of the scales.”</p><p>His words and the decisiveness with which he delivered them softened Uhtred’s smile to something almost intimate. Osferth and Hild share a look before glancing at Gisela, but Uhtred’s wife is smiling softly at him in turn. Brida sank back into her seat, a look of utter disgust on her face.</p><p>The smile faded quickly from Uhtred and he turned back to Ragnar. “You’re absolutely right about his gathering strength. There is too much risk in waiting, even with uneven numbers. If he finds a Lord of War or an Earl to join with him, we’re doomed. So we must attack before that happens.”</p><p>Ragnar nodded. “The question is how and where.”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged. “We will send the spies and find out their numbers, where they are. We are paralyzed until we understand what we are facing.” Ragnar nodded. “Osferth, you and Father Beocca will take one of Ragnar’s men and Rypere. You will ride to Eoferwic and find the army. Mingle with them. spread the word that I am gathering here for an attack, try as subtly as you can to convince the men that Guthred will betray them. Target what you can find of the household guard. Rypere will know who they are. Discover their numbers, their strengths and weaknesses, who has mustered and who is absent if you can. Stay no more than four days and return as quickly as you can.”</p><p>Ragnar stood. “You must be as unobtrusive as possible. If anyone points you out or if you make a spectacle of yourself, leave immediately and return here. We cannot afford to risk any lives at all. Especially on a task like this.”</p><p>Osferth and Beocca shared a look and both reached up to touch their crosses. “Of course. We will do exactly as you ask and return with news.” Beocca said, standing. “We’ll leave today.”</p><p>With that, the council disbanded. Ragnar went with their newly appointed spies to find Rypere and his own man, Jackdaw, who he would send with them. Everyone else filtered out, leaving Uhtred and Gisela alone at the table. She came up beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head against his chest.</p><p>He curled an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “I am beginning to fear that Alfred’s plans are simply wishes on the winter breeze. Foolishly made and destined to vanish.”</p><p>She tightened her grip on him. “No. You will not fail him, my love. You will be King in the north. And Northumbria will rise from the ashes of invasion.”</p><p>Uhtred exhaled, the rapid  beat of his heart settling at her quiet assurance, said not simply to reassure but as fact. He hoped that she was right. How could hardly an hour spent in discussion trample all his growing hope to dust, he wondered. It had all seemed to simply when Erik has pressed him on the future. Now, though? Now, they could only wait. Without more news, they were blind and stumbling, enshrouded in a fog that could hold only ghost or could hide a hoard of enemies. </p><p>He touched the hammer at his throat and sent out a silent prayer. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So much for my weekly updates. I don't have the patience for it.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Letter</h2></a>
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    <p>Uhtred, Lord of Bebbenburg,</p><p>I will open with the most heartfelt congratulations on your victory. You have completed the task to which you have dedicated yourself and taken an impregnable fortress. That is no small achievement. In doing so, you have righted a wrong and brought a measure of order to the chaos of this great island of ours. </p><p>It seems that congratulations are also likely in order on the birth of your third child. Sihtric told me that the Lady Gisela was expecting at any moment, when he departed, so no doubt, by the time this letter finds you, you will have a new addition to your family. I pray that all is well with the newest Uhtredsson and with your lady wife. </p><p>To politics next: As you no doubt have heard, I have been crowned King of Mercia by the Mercian Witan, through no doing of my own. I had been hopeful of putting a Lord on that throne who was sympathetic to Wessex and to England, but an ealdorman seemed to think that I was that Lord. He spoke most eloquently and convinced the rest of the Witan to hand the crown to me. I am deeply suspicious of this, for a variety of reasons, beginning with his youth and ending with his deep-seated loathing for all Danes.</p><p>I have already begun integrating the law codes and the taxation systems, so as to form one kingdom. I have tried to ensure that Danes and pagans receive fair treatment under English law, when it goes into effect. I have exempted them from the church tithing. I am attempting to decide if they would rebel at a very small yearly exemption fee that would be used to maintain infrastructure. The bridge at Lunden in particular is badly in need of extensive repairs. I would hear your thoughts on it and the thoughts of Earl Ragnar. Also, if there is anything I should know about Danelaw that might be pertinent or especially different from the laws of Wessex. I will send a copy north for you to review, before they are announced.</p><p>Lastly, as Sihtric may have told you, that same ealdorman, Coenred, stumbled upon him on his journey south. He’d stopped at your estate to rest and eat when Coenred arrived and attempted to eject him. He somehow managed to detain Sihtric long enough to chain him and dragged him to Winchester. I was not given the details of the encounter — you can no doubt press your man for them — but the state of Sihtric’s face and arms indicated that he may have been unconscious when the beating occurred. I have sent Coenred back to his Mercian estate to await judgement, but as Sihtric is your man and Coccham is your land, I would appreciate whatever input you might have and would follow your guidance in this, to a point. </p><p>And a warning: There is also rumor of a fleet gathering to sail from Irland sometime this summer. I do not know the specifics of this, only that the traders speak of it in whispers and no one discusses it within the bounds of Winchester, so it is likely true. </p><p>Now that business is concluded…</p><p>I had not expected you to reply to my letter. I simply needed to write it. Needed you to know. I never sought to hurt you nor did I think it would. For that, I apologize. But still I will employ my most dangerous weapon again and speak honestly, for I have deprived you of my honesty for much too long.</p><p>I wish, with my entire being, to believe that when you wrote of the vast lake inside your soul and of shíorghrá, that you were telling me that you loved me. That when you said you would speak the words I ache to hear when we next met, you were saying the same.</p><p>But I find that I cannot convince myself of this. I am agonized by doubt. For if you loved me, why would you seek to hurt me? Why would you withhold that which you know would give me comfort? I cannot answer my own questions and so I cannot decide how much of a fool I am. </p><p>How much of a fool I will continue to be.</p><p>It is said that time heals. I have found that true in most cases, but not in this. With each day that passes, my grief at your absence grows. I am wounded to the core and there is neither cure nor treatment. At council, I feel the loss of you like an ache inside my chest. When I witness the soldiers at their drills, Edward at his practice, the bouts of skill that some time happen in the marketplace, I bleed for lack of you. I see your face, your figure, hear your tread and your voice, in every crowd, but when I turn round to seek you out, I am once again reminded that you have gone north and may never return to me. Which, I know, is my own doing.</p><p>I cannot regret it and yet, I do. I have sent my best warrior, my truest advisor, my beloved away from me to take a kingdom of his own, to be a King, which is only what he deserves, and left myself bereft. With him, I sent my chief confessor and dearest friend. I am alone.</p><p>I have a wife, you say, and so cannot be alone, surely. But you would be wrong, for I do not have a wife. I have…I no longer understand what Aelswith is to me. She will not speak to me, outside the council chambers or the chapel. She will not look at me if she can help it. She is a broken thing and all of her pain is my doing, for she believes our daughter to be dead. I cannot tell her otherwise and so she grieves and I stand a distant witness to it. </p><p>What have we done, Uhtred? What have we done to those around us? This monstrous lie we’ve told…Will it succeed? Will it be worth the pain it has caused? The sheer volume of human suffering? </p><p>There are days when I find that I can no longer bear it, but I know I have no choice. And no one to blame but myself, which is the hardest thing of all.</p><p>I would like to say I have grown, in my pain, to hate you and that I would be content to never see you again, but that would also be a monstrous lie. I have already told enough of those to last several lifetimes. I can only pray for your victory at Eoferwic and for the truth of Aethelflaed to be revealed. </p><p>I only hope that I can play my part in that and convince my court and my wife that I did not know. I fear what Aelswith would do to us both if I cannot. More than that, I fear what she will do to you if I can. </p><p>Sometimes, I think that you were right all those years ago and my God is testing me. I wonder if I am failing. Other times, I find myself convinced that this is punishment for the perversion of my love for you. And why should I not be punished? Why should this sin that lives deep under my skin not be grievous to God? For I will confess that <strike>I often wish the rumors</strike> I long for you, as a man longs for his wife, body and soul. I do not know if you feel that same, for desire and love are not wedded to one another. If you do truly harbor some love for me, I do not know if my confession will sour it with disgust. I find I do not know anything at all anymore.<br/>I am adrift in the sea. The raft I cling to is England and I pray it can bring me to shore again someday. Will you be standing on that shore or will dry land be just as desolate as open water?</p><p>As soon as this letter is sealed and handed off, it is likely that I will regret writing it, but I am feverish with words and love and undone at the opportunity to write to you again in privacy. </p><p>Alfred, King of Wessex and Mercia</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Winchester</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dealing with the peasants fleeing Hywel’s raids was a task that Alfred simply did not have the time to deal with. Especially since, by the second day, there were over three hundred and fifty people gathering outside the gates. It was a small army and what finally pushed Alfred to seek out his wife.</p><p>He knocked at the door of her solar, feeling unaccountably nervous. Yes, they’d had a falling out, but he’d been married to Aelswith for almost fifteen years. Surely, after that much time, the prospect of disturbing her peace should not send nausea bubbling in his gut?</p><p>The thin-face servant opened the door and her eyes went wide at the sight of him. She bowed deeply, but did not move away to let him enter. “M’Lady, it is the King.” She said instead, loud enough to carry back into the room.</p><p>“Let him in, Aelfled.” Aelswith’s voice was calm and blank, giving him no sense of her reaction to his sudden appearance. He could feel the muscles in his calves flex as he tried not to shift.</p><p>The servant, Aelfled, moved aside with a sheepish smile. Aelswith’s rooms had not changed since the last time he’d been here though it had been nearly eight months ago, he realized with a sharp pang. “My dear.” He offered, with a small smile. “You are looking very well.”</p><p>And she was. Her hair had been braided into a thick loop around the back of her head and she was in a fitted gown. Her eyes were clear, all trace of redness gone. “And you, husband, are looking very tired. Is all well?”</p><p>She was not wrong, he thought ruefully. His bones ached for lack of sleep and his eyes were gritty. A headache had been building since Odda gave him the news yesterday. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept a full night through. Could barely remember the last time he’d slept at all. “All is not well. I have some grave news and a request to make, if you would give me a little of your time.”</p><p>His wife inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide, but she nodded and dismissed her maids. When they were alone, Alfred sat in the chair opposite her and put his head into his hands. “We will be at war with Wales by week’s end.”</p><p>“What?” She sounded alarmed. “But Hywel is—“</p><p>“He is raiding along the Mercian border. As near as we can tell he’s killed some hundred peasants and stolen over a dozen church relics.” Alfred did not have the strength to summon yesterday’s rage. Even his voice sounded weary.</p><p>“But the Mercians are Christians!”</p><p>He finally looked up at her, bile crawling up his throat. “That, I suppose, is my fault. According to Odda, it was the…rumors about Uhtred that caused Hywel to forsake us.”</p><p>He braced himself, swallowing back the bile, and waited. He had endured her rage and her pain for months now, could still hear her hissed recriminations echo in his head. She had warned him that the rumors would destabilize his reign. Uhtred had warned him too. </p><p>He had not thought it possible that such a little thing could have such dire consequences. He could not have been more wrong. People were dead because he had not listened to their sound advice.</p><p>“But that is utter nonsense!” Aelswith cried, leaning forward to frown at him.</p><p>His eyes went wide and he stared. Had he misheard?</p><p>“Who you hump does not effect the religious practice of the people of your kingdom! Just because you lay with pagans does not mean that suddenly all the men of the Wessex and Mercia will suddenly go seek out Danish warriors to bed. And the presence of sin does not actually mean the absence of faith.” </p><p>Alfred felt the words like darts. The truth sat on his tongue, begging to be spoken, but it had been too long now and it was much too late for that. Especially when he had committed the sin of which she accused him in his heart, even if he had not committed it in deed. That he had not lain with Uhtred was a truth he could attest to on any bible, but that he would not in future bed the man was not a promise he could give. It was, though, a guilt he carried with him always: that he had betrayed her in word and feeling, that he would readily forsake his marriage vows should Uhtred return to Winchester and ask for him. His throat worked on a painful swallow.</p><p>Aelswith shook her head, unaware or uncaring of his inner turmoil. “Hywel saw wealth and prosperity. He saw a threadbare excuse to take it for himself. If his quarrel was with your behavior, he could have challenged you directly or come to see you about it. Instead, he acted as a Dane. And Welsh Christianity is so full of myths and legends and blasphemy that it is hardly Christianity at all.” She sighed. “This is grave news indeed. Will you take Wales then? Add it to the crown of England?”</p><p>He nodded, pushing away his ever-swelling guilt and sharp hurt. “He comes for us in violence and we will meet him with the same. No doubt he thought that there would be no consequences to his actions because I so often seek peace instead of war. But I will not tolerate this from a Christian nation, certainly not one on our border.” He shook his head, sighing. “I cannot go to war with Denmark to force the Danes from raiding our shores, but I can stop the Welsh from doing the same. I never had an eye on Wales before. The Welsh are too separate from Saxon England, but if this is how Hywel behaves then he has brought it upon himself.”</p><p>Aelswith nodded, a small smile gracing her face. It was a pretty thing and one that Alfred had not seen in many months. It warmed something in him, for a moment. “And what is your request then, Lord?”</p><p>“The peasants. The ones fleeing Hywel. There are nearly four hundred of them now. I cannot deal with them. I barely have time as it is, attempting to integrate the two governments. I was working on the law codes before Odda’s news yesterday, but some of that will have to wait. Could you take care of them, my dear? See them settled and fed?”</p><p>She nodded, the smile lingering on her mouth, but a lightest hint of concern in her dark eyes. “You really do look exhausted, Alfred. You seem to be neither sleeping nor eating enough. It is as though you waste away before our eyes.” She stopped and the concern vanished, leaving her gaze blank and her expression one of detached disinterest again. “Is it for want of your heathen? Is that why you have been…this way?” She waved at him vaguely.</p><p>He inhaled, his jaw clenching. A scream was building at the back of his tongue, one that he could not allow to escape. Could she really think him so undisciplined? “No, Aelswith. It is merely that I am already overwhelmed with work. The coming war with Wales will only worsen the situation. I no longer seem to have a single spare moment to breath, never mind devote to things like eating or sleeping. I cannot remember the last time I spent more than a few minutes in the chapel, outside of mass. There is simply too much that needs immediate attention.”</p><p>Even before the mess with Wales, Alfred had been seriously considering asking Bishop Erkenwold if he could send a well-read deacon or two to the palace to act as Alfred’s secretary. He kept putting it off. He could not bring himself to trust a stranger with the reports and letters. There was always a chance that they would miss some small, crucial detail, some reference that Alfred would not. There was too much at stake to risk such a mistake.</p><p>Alfred would have asked Aelswith herself to help him with the reports, as he had done in the past, but he could not. He feared that, if word of Uhtred or Aethelflaed passed across his desk, she would do something rash. He could easily envision her hiding some vital news and thereby allowing Uhtred to be killed, with no thought to the rippling consequences it would have. Or ordering his death herself. He sighed, frustration tensing the muscles of his back and shoulders.</p><p>Aelswith’s eyes grew warm again, the worry resurfacing. “That simply won’t do. You must sleep and eat and pray. Perhaps, especially pray.” Her tone was touched with wryness on the last. Alfred’s jaw creaked with how hard he was grinding his teeth. “Perhaps you could allow Edward to shoulder some of the burden of governing Wessex? I know it is too soon to delegate your work with Mercia, but the boy will have to rule some day, some very distant day with God’s grace, and this will assist you both.”</p><p>Alfred blinked, before a small smile touched his mouth. “My dear, that is an excellent solution. I feared that I would be buried in reports and never dig my way out. It would help keep him out of trouble and teach him what it means to be King. Very neat.”</p><p>Suggesting Edward was an excellent compromise. Whether the boy had heard the rumors or not, he had always loved Uhtred like an uncle, as Aethelflaed had as a child, so putting possible mention of their wayward Dane before him would not cause Alfred undue worry. </p><p>Alfred was filled with sudden melancholy. He wished Aethelflaed were here beside them. She would prove an excellent assistant. Her mind was sharp and tactical. Her heart was open. She would have made an excellent Queen one day, ruling at her husband’s side as Aelswith had done for him for so long. But God had given her a different path. She would never rule a Kingdom now. She had chosen to flee with her Danish lover and so she would spend her days in exile in the far north, protected by the walls of Bebbenburg. She would live a small life, but hopefully, he fervently prayed, a happy one.</p><p>The thought of his daughter sent another sharp pain through his heart. He missed her, more than he thought he would. She had only been married a scant few months and during that time, Aethelred and she had visited Winchester twice, which meant that he had never gone so long without seeing her. He shook the thoughts away, guilt his ever present companion, and refocused on his wife.</p><p>“I shall speak with him tomorrow. I’ll give him some of my correspondence to deal with and he can take over hearing petitions twice a month. I will retain the other two days.” He nodded once, decisive and pleased to have been given at least some small solution to the mountain of parchment littering the library. “And now, my dear, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my desk. Odda will have what little we’ve learned about the peasants. They gather at the North gate. Tell him I’ve instructed that whatever resources you need are to be made available to you.”</p><p>She nodded and stood. “Yes, husband. I shall.”</p><p>With a small half-smile, Alfred left her, feeling lighter than he had in months for having at least established a truce between them. He retreated to his library and to the tax plans and levies that he was attempting to integrate. It was taking significantly more time than he wanted to sort through things, partly because he was being inundated with correspondence and emissaries from every ruler from Ireland to Denmark and beyond. He’d never heard of several of the Kingdoms whose Kings sent word.  </p><p>He had even had a letter from Sigfred and Halfdan, the twin brothers who shared the crown of Denmark. They were, by all reports, fearsome in both battle and trade, and they only spoke with those who they counted as equals. To be labeled equal by the Kings of Denmark was a rare and pleasant honor. Wessex had never been large enough to warrant such contact, but with Mercia added to Alfred’s crown, he now ruled nearly half of Britain. Apparently that had been enough to bring him to Denmark’s attention. He wondered  idly what effect that might have on the constant flow of vikings.</p><p>He shook the thought away. He’d have no time for any of that now, given there were troop numbers and battle strategies to review and some sort of plan to construct. He sighed as he pushed open the library door.</p><p>Father Pyrlig was waiting for him inside and he was not alone. At his side was a young nun, small and grave in her grey habit. There was a wooden cross round her neck and a scar spidering across half of her long, solemn face. She’d tucked her hands into her sleeves, but fairly vibrated with nervousness, standing half a step behind the large priest. </p><p>“Lord.” Pyrlig flexed his hands before tucking them behind his back. Alfred eyed the gesture before meeting the man’s eyes. </p><p>“Father Pyrlig. What brings you to my library?” Alfred stopped in the doorway, a frowned beginning to form.</p><p>“I took the liberty of sending out a scout or two after Ealdorman Coenred when he left. I thought it might be prudent to make…subtle inquiries. To discover if the man might have plans that did not include you in their formulation. One of my scouts returned just this morning, Lord. I thought you would wish to hear this immediately.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyes flicked to the nun again, only just realizing that the room was devoid of its usual collection of monks copying texts and writing his chronicle. Pyrlig was rolling up onto the balls of his feet and rocking to his heels, a repetitive full body tic, when Alfred turned his eyes back to the priest. The nun-scout must have an extraordinary tale to tell to make Pyrlig this agitated in the midst of their current situation.</p><p>“You must introduce me to your companion, Father.”</p><p>Pyrlig bobbed his head, a funny little gesture that wasn’t a nod, tugged the nun forward. She tried to shrink back, eyes on the floor, but the priest was having none of it. With a final sharp tug, the nun stepped forward, but still would not raise her eyes. </p><p>“Greet his lordship, girl. The King does not bite.” Pyrlig sounded exasperated, but his voice was warm. </p><p>“Lord King.” She said in a quiet, soothing voice, and bowed deeply, her eyes never lifting to look at him.</p><p>“This is Sister Leofgifu. She is the newest member of the nunnery at Coccham. Abbess Hild sent her to me to help sort scrolls in the church vault. She speaks Danish, Lord, among other things.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyebrows shot up, impressed with the slip of a girl. She was barely sixteen, old enough to be wed, but still so painfully young. Although, perhaps appearances were deceiving in this instance. If Hild thought her capable…Alfred offered them both seats, interested despite himself. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Sister. Abbess Hild’s confidence is a high recommendation indeed. Tell me, have you lived in Coccham long?”</p><p>If Pyrlig had asked, Alfred would have told him that he merely wished to put her more at ease, as she sat gingerly on the edge of her chair. It would not be untrue, but nor would it be the whole truth. He wondered if she had met Uhtred in her time there and how he ran his village, what his people thought of him. Alfred was as hungry for knowledge of the Dane as he was for England, the very thought of which appalled him, but did not prevent him from seeking out any new thing about the man. That he was allowing himself to be distracted by this when there was already too much to occupy his attention did not escape him. He suppressed a sigh at the thought. As always, when it came to Uhtred, he was a fool.</p><p>“Yes, Lord. I’ve lived at Coccham for three years now. Ever since Lord Uhtred rescued me from a band of Viking pirates, who were raiding on the Temes, Lord.” Her head came up and she finally looked him in the eye. Alfred inhaled sharply at the sight. Her eyes were the same odd, vibrant blue of Uhtred’s, a shade that Alfred had rarely seen before. A chill ran down Alfred’s spine. Aethelflaed was in the north pretending to be Uhtred’s bastard son, but Alfred wondered, his scalp prickling and his shoulders tensing, if he was somehow meeting Uhtred’s real bastard daughter.</p><p>She stared at him with wide eyes for long moments and fidgeted under her sleeves. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her hands moving restlessly beneath he fabric. Finally, he managed to pull his focus from the color of her eyes and respond to her statement. Pyrlig was frowning lightly at them both, confusion in his face. </p><p>“Indeed? That sounds like a story I would like to hear, but perhaps another time.” It was, in fact, a story he wished to hear immediately, but Pyrlig’s frown was slipping toward a scowl, reminding Alfred that there was work to be done. Perhaps, he would ask Hild and Pyrlig to release the girl to him. His translations, of Danish in particular, were always slow and laborious, hardly ever worth the time they took him. That would give him the opportunity to press her for stories of Uhtred and discover her origin. He put the thought aside to consider later. “Right at present, I think there are more pressing matters. You’ve just returned from Mercia. What is it that you have learned, Sister?”</p><p>“Just, Lord…” She paused, those distinctive eyes slipping to the priest, who nodded reassuringly at her. “There is a story that the villagers tell on Lord Coenred’s estates.” Her words were slow and halting, but Alfred did not attempt to hurry her along. “They say that when he was a boy, Lord Coenred was taken in a Viking raid, the raid that killed his mother. His father, Lord Coewulf of Wednesfield, was devastated by this and tried to ransom him many times. He did not succeed, Lord. The villagers say that many years passed with no word of the boy. Everyone believed him to be dead. Lord Coewulf’s younger son took up the mantel of heir and time passed. Then, just before the battle of Ethandun, perhaps a few months before Earl Guthrum took Winchester, the Lord’s second son died. He was heartbroken by it and had no other heir, but the body was hardly cold in the ground, Lord, when Coenred arrived, the prodigal son returned to the fold. The villagers all believe it is a miracle that he was preserved in captivity. He has not been Lord long, but long enough that they have grown fond of him. He is generous and reported to be kind to the poor, a good Christian man.”</p><p>Alfred nodded, a suspicion beginning to form, but smiled at the nun. “Thank you, Sister Leofgifu. It is a most interesting story. You have done very well indeed.”</p><p>He glanced at Pyrlig, who met his gaze for a moment before standing to usher out the nun. He returned a moment later, face unusually grim. “Lord…” Pyrlig trailed off.</p><p>Alfred rolled his shoulders, leaning back in his chair. “You were correct, Father. That story was very interesting. Prolonged captivity would certainly explain Coenred’s intense hatred for the Danes.”</p><p>“It would, Lord.” Pyrlig acknowledged, still looking troubled. “But…”</p><p>“But it is too convenient? Yes. I agree. Everything about that story sounds like a legend. Like a narrative.”</p><p>Pyrlig nodded, sighing. “It’s all too neat. The timing is perfect.”</p><p>Alfred pursed his lips, considering. There were still too many gaps. “We need more information before we can make any sort of judgment. And we still have no idea what his future plans are. His past is interesting and it might give us a way to remove him, but it can’t necessarily prepare us for what’s to come.” He shook his head. “And, on top of that, it’s too much of a distraction, given this new trouble with Wales. I simply do not have the time or attention to spend on it just now, but I want you to keep digging, Pyrlig. See what the other scout has to say. Keep me updated as needed.”</p><p>Pyrlig nodded and took his leave. Alfred sat, staring vacantly at the floor. In his mind’s eye, Wales and Coenred and Guthred and Uhtred all lay out before him, small parts of a greater whole. They were pieces on a game board, but each move effected every other move. A scowl darkened his face. There was something he was missing. Some piece that would slot all the others into place, but he couldn’t see what it was or where it would be placed. </p><p>He sighed, blinking it all away. Hopefully, he discovered it before it ruined the game.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Uhtred had shed his armor for a well-made leather coat embroidered with his wolf’s head banner and linen shirt on the day that Christians called Palm Sunday. The day was warm for spring and peaceful. Gulls circled overhead, crying at one another, and a warm breeze blew out over the fields west of Bebbenburg. Ragnar rode at his shoulder, with Clapa and eight other guardsmen at their backs, and there were all grateful for the rare escape from the chaos of a fortress preparing for war. </p><p>There were traders on the beach, just passed the bluffs. The goods they carried were important for the men they’d be outfitting in the next few weeks, blades and ingots and hopefully a few mail coats, but the news was worth infinitely more, especially if one of them had come north from Eoferwic or Lunden. It had been almost a week since the last trader, an unusually long stretch. It was the length of this stretch that brought Uhtred and Ragnar to meet the traders themselves.</p><p>Uhtred tried to ignore the twist in his guts as their slow pace brought back memories of the last time he was on a beach with Ragnar. They clouded his eyes and, for a moment, he was back on Sverri’s ship. He could taste the cold salt air on his tongue and feel the bite of the lash against his skin. Uhtred blinked hard and tried to force the memories away, wishing desperately that Finan was there with him instead of out recruiting. </p><p>As Smoca’s hooves hit sand, Uhtred took a slow, measured breath. It had been years since he was a slave, and months since he was an oathsman. He had been his own master since riding north and that was not going to change. He was Uhtred Ragnarsson, Lord of Bebbenburg, no matter how much he still sometimes felt like Osbert.</p><p>Shaking his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts, Uhtred forced himself to focus again on the traders, their ships, and the cargo that the men were off-loading. He frowned, trying to see the name at the second boat. It was written in a runic script and the boat itself looked Danish. Something about it and the figure directing its crew struck Uhtred as familiar.</p><p>“You know him?” Ragnar asked, catching Uhtred’s frown. He waved at the Dane.</p><p>Uhtred narrowed his eyes just as the trader turned to face the sands, giving Uhtred his profile. “Ulf! Yes, I know him. He used to trade along the Temes. I’d see him at Coccham often. I’ve never known him to sail this far north, especially so early in the season.”</p><p>Ragnar nodded, eyeing the man curiously. “Could that mean a problem?”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged, but raised his voice to call,  “Ulf, what on earth brought you this far north? Still a spying, you worthless turd?”</p><p>Ulf spun at the sound of Uhtred’s shout, his eyes wide, the same toothless smile stretching his mouth. Uhtred met it with a grin of his own, wide and dimpling with genuine pleasure at seeing the old man.</p><p>“Lord Uhtred! I’d ask you the same. You finally took Bebbenburg, have ye?”</p><p>“I have, indeed seven months passed now. What brings you north?” Uhtred asked again, feeling unease crawl up the back of his neck as he drew his horse up beside the man. </p><p>Ulf shrugged easily, still smiling, but didn’t respond. He turned to gesture to one of his men, but didn’t move back toward the ship.  </p><p>Uhtred dismounted and Ulf turned back to him, his smile widening slightly, though it dimmed again with Ragnar and Clapa both dismounted behind him. The trader stepped up to them and Uhtred reached out to grasp his arm in greeting. Ulf’s grip was strong as ever, though his hand trembled against Uhtred’s forearm. There was something unsettled about the tremble and it made Uhtred’s scalp prickle. His pressed his fingers in a little tighter and found that Ulf’s pulse was rabbiting against his fingers.</p><p>Keep his expression friendly and his posture loose, Uhtred released him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ragnar watching him and so he dropped his hand to his side, tapping his thigh lightly. It was the gesture that Ragnar The Fearless had used when hunting to indicate something was amiss. He saw Ragnar blink and turn to watch the trader.</p><p>Ulf’s smile widened. “Just trading.” He said, when it became obvious that Uhtred was waiting for an answer. “I heard there was a new lord this a-ways and I thought I’d get an eye on him, maybe do some business. I’ve got some fine Wessex linen here and winter apples by the bushel.”</p><p>“We’ll take the linen.” Uhtred nodded and then glanced at Clapa. “Send one of the men to inspect the apples and have Cerdic speak with the Frank.”</p><p>Clapa nodded, shoulders tensing briefly as he caught Uhtred’s continued unease. In a few moments, Uhtred saw Cerdic dismount and make his way across the beach toward the other ship. Another guardsman, Cuthbert, crossed to Ulf’s ship and climbed aboard. Clapa came back to take his place at Uhtred’s shoulder.</p><p>“Excellent, Lord.” Ulf said, eyeing both Ragnar and Clapa. His smile was distinctly strained. “Excellent. It is some interesting new company you’re keeping lately. The crazy Irishman finally move along then?”</p><p>Uhtred snorted. “You never did like Finan much, did you, Ulf? This is Clapa,” He gestured. “And this is my brother, Earl Ragnar Ragnarsson.”</p><p>Ulf’s eyes widened for half a beat before his expression faded back to its usual subservient grin. “Well met. I’ve heard much about you in particular, Lord.”</p><p>Ragnar smiled at him, a threat clear in the flash of his teeth, but he didn’t reply.</p><p>Uhtred drew Ulf’s focus back to himself. “Ragnar’s reputation always precedes him.” </p><p>Ulf nodded, but fell quiet again. Uhtred shifted his weight to his back foot. Ulf was one of the most talkative tradesmen Uhtred had ever met and normally he didn’t even require coin for it. He brimmed with words and the fact that he suddenly seemed to have none was possibly more worrying than anything else.   </p><p>“What word have you from Wessex?” Uhtred finally asked after too long a moment of silence, unable to stop himself from pressing. “Have you come from there?” </p><p>He turned to watch Cuthbert speaking with one of the men on the rowing benches just out of sight, hoping that Ulf couldn’t read his eagerness in his face, and tried to keep his tone neutral, but likely failed. His hunger for news of Alfred and of Wessex was so vast and so consuming that he was sure it was written clear across his face for anyone to see. </p><p>Ulf’s grin turned sly, confirming Uhtred’s fears. “So eager, Lord, for word of the Saxons? Or just the one Saxon in particular?”</p><p>Uhtred clenched his jaw and exhaled, guilt and frustration surging to simmer in his blood. It occurred to him then that, no matter how long he lived, he would never escape these rumors. He could live to see his great-grandchildren born and still all anyone would ever ask him about was his love affair with Alfred of Wessex. There was a hopeless bitterness attached to the thought and a thick film of guilt, but under all of it was a small burning kernel of a joy so fierce it was nearly painful. He pushed it all away and tried force it from his face and voice.</p><p>On the ship, Cuthbert seemed to be pawing through a basket of apples, but there was something wrong with his body language. He was coiled tight, but trying not to show it and his free hand was resting on the pummel of his sword. Uhtred felt his own muscles tense in response. “I have many friends in Wessex.” He said, voice as bland as porridge. He smiled, toothy and sharp, and the trader. “You know this. I have land there. I am always eager to know that my lands there are safe.”</p><p>Ulf snorted, clearly not believing him. “Well, lucky for you Coccham is in the east.”</p><p>Uhtred inhaled sharply, attention snapping back to the trader, a chill chasing down his spine. Ragnar tensed at his side. “What do you mean ‘lucky for me’?”</p><p>Ulf cocked his head. “You haven’t heard? Wessex is to go to war with Wales some time soon. It probably already has. King Hywel has been raiding Mercia.”</p><p>Uhtred stilled, mind racing. “Why would Hywel attack Mercia?"</p><p>Ulf shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I can only say what I’ve heard. And I got that second hand.”</p><p>Uhtred blinked at that, his expression slipping into a frown. “Second hand? Where have you been to hear such a thing second hand?” But of course, as soon as he’d asked, Uhtred realized that he already knew. Ulf’s overly friendly demeanor, his quiet, and whatever was on the boat that was making Cuthbert tense all pointed to the same truth. He sighed, lifting his hand to rest on Serpent-Breath, on the amber stone that was one of the only things his Saxon father ever gave him.  Ragnar, seeing the gesture, copied it and so did Clapa. “Ulf, you’ve been in Eoferwic. Who are you spying for? It couldn’t possibly be Guthred.”</p><p>“No idea what you’re talking about, Lord.” Ulf said, his expression obsequious and his body tense.</p><p>“Well then. The moment you stop answering my questions is the moment you stop being useful to me. I’d say it’s time you were on your way.” He turned to call to Cuthbert who was now climbing back out of Ulf’s ship. The man shook his head. “Clapa here can settle on a price with you for the linen and you can move along. </p><p>“Lord, I am told there is a spring nearby, up on the heath. We’ll just—“</p><p>“You will not leave this beach. I am sure you are well enough stocked to make it up the coast to the nearest settlement. Landing before you reach it will not go well for you.”</p><p>Ulf scowled, but under the dark tan, his face paled. His eyes skittered around the beach. </p><p>“This is not Coccham and I am no longer restrained by Saxon law or Alfred’s rule.” He paused and waited for the trader to meet his eye before saying, “Do not think to test me, Ulf. You will lose and you will die.”</p><p>Ulf’s scowl vanished, replaced by blatant fear, and he took a step back from the intensity in Uhtred’s face. He glanced at Ragnar, but was given no reprieve. Ulf nodded. “Yes, Lord.”</p><p>Uhtred smiled, thin-lipped and angry. “Good. And Ulf? I wouldn’t recommend returning, here or to Coccham, because next time, I won’t be so generous.”</p><p>Even with fear in his eyes, this last order made Ulf’s expression sour. He huffed and gritted his teeth. “Yes, Lord.”</p><p>Uhtred held his gaze for another moment before returning to his horse and mounting it. He left Clapa and the rest of the guard on the beach to deal with the linen and whatever Cerdic had bought from the Frankish trader and rode back to the fortress. </p><p>Ragnar was quiet for much of the ride, but on the last stretch of road before the gates, he finally asked, “What was he doing here?”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged, glancing at Ragnar. “No idea. Spying certainly, but the men who normally serve on his ship are barely more than farmers. Strong, good rowers, but not trained. The men he had aboard today? Those were warriors. And Cuthbert saw something that made him uneasy. Probably weapons under their benches. But what good two dozen men and a Danish trader are going to be against the ramparts of Bebbenburg, I have no idea.”</p><p>“Unless they were supposed to ambush whoever came out to trade? Who would normally deal with him at Coccham?” Ragnar asked, voice thoughtful, but rough with anger.</p><p>Uhtred shrugged again. “Me or Finan. Occasionally Clapa. One very memorable time, Gisela.”</p><p>Ragnar nodded. “Maybe they were meant to kill you or whoever came out to meet them. Or take them hostage? You often do foolish things when people you love are in danger.”</p><p>Uhtred laughed. “You’re not wrong.”</p><p>Ragnar chuckled with him as the gates opened to let them in. Uhtred’s laughter faded into a smile, but even that dropped away when he saw that Sihtric was standing at the entrance to the stables, waiting for them. The bottom dropped out of Uhtred’s stomach at the sight of him, his entire body filling up with equal parts joy that Sihtric was returned safe and terrified longing at the prospect of another letter from Alfred. He managed a warm enough greeting so as to not give away his conflicted response. He wasn’t given time to stew, however, because Osferth and Beocca both appeared at the far end of the stables, just as Uhtred dismounted. </p><p>“Lord!” Osferth called at the same time as Beocca’s, “Uhtred!”</p><p>They jogged the last few paces, matching expressions of worry on their faces. Uhtred, trying to stamp down the queasy anticipation in his gut, glanced at Ragnar, who looked just as tense as Uhtred felt. “Welcome back,” He said to all three, as Ragnar stepped up to stand at his side. “I’m sure you all have news.”</p><p>“Uhtred, we have a problem.” Beocca beat out the others, wringing his hands. </p><p>“Into the hall. This doesn’t need to be discussed here.” Uhtred shook his head, the queasy feeling climbing up to the back of his throat. He swallowed it down and gestured them all toward the hall.</p><p>As they turned away, Sihtric reached over and slipped something into Uhtred’s hands. He looked down to see Alfred’s seal: another letter. His heart skipped a beat and his breathing went ragged for a moment. He managed a nod and a wide-eyed half-smile for Sihtric, who grinned back, and tucked the letter away to read later.</p><p>“Lord, the king had just that same expression on his face when I told him that you’d instructed me to wait for a letter.” Sihtric murmured as they trailed after the others. </p><p>Uhtred fought down a blush by sheer willpower and scowled, but he didn’t comment. This correspondence he and Alfred seemed to have fallen into made Uhtred feel like a blushing boy in the first flush of youth again, as jittery as he was before his first hump. He hated it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so off-balance with anyone. </p><p>And yet, there was still a small wooden box, hidden away under his desk and locked tight, holding Alfred’s first letter and the quick, hand-drawn map the man had made of Bebbenburg during their planning sessions. He’d tried to burn both of them, but even contemplating it made him break out into a cold sweat.</p><p>He twitched and shoved the thoughts away, unaccountably embarrassed by Sihtric’s knowing gaze and conspiratorial smile. Now was not the time for such things. The hall doors closed behind him and he refocused on the present. </p><p>As soon as he crossed the room, Beocca began again, “Uhtred, there were too many men gathered at Eoferwic. It couldn’t possible have been just Guthred’s troops.”</p><p>Osferth jumped in then. “A good quarter of them spoke Danish, maybe more.”</p><p>Ragnar was shaking his head. “Guthred’s got to be in the pocket of some Earl, then.”</p><p>Uhtred’s stomach soured and he shifted on his feet, throat working on a swallow. He exhaled, shaky and long. “But which one and will he continue siding with Guthred when he see that you’d sided with me?”</p><p>Ragnar shrugged. “Whichever one it is, he’d want to rule through the Turd King. I’m guessing he already does. He won’t side with us. And what’s left of Kjartan’s hoard isn’t enough to convince his men to either.”</p><p>“So it’s hopeless then?” Sihtric asked, sounding wary.</p><p>Uhtred shook his head, ignoring his burning throat and sour stomach. “No. I don’t believe that. There has to be some way to solve this. We need to find out who this new Earl is.” His eyes widened and he turned to Ragnar. “He must be the one who sent Ulf. But how would he know? Why would he care if the armies under Guthred outnumber us so badly? Why not just left us break on his ramparts?”</p><p>Ragnar shrugged, but Osferth said, “Maybe it’s personal, Lord. Maybe it’s someone you know.”</p><p>Uhtred considered that. He tried to remember if there were any Earls left who he had offended or beaten. “Haeston would have been the most likely, but Alfred killed him at Beamfleot. I can’t think of anyone else. Ubba’s brothers, Ivar and Halfdan, were killed in Ireland or I might think of one of them, but they’d have to be ancient by now. At least fifty. Even if they were alive, they wouldn’t be leading warriors.”</p><p>Beocca sighed. “So it’s someone new. Maybe he simply wants the reputation killing the Daneslayer would get him. Your own name grows by the day, since you retook Bebbenburg, Uhtred. Surely killing you would be draw enough.”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged. “It’s all speculation. We need to figure out who he is. To do that we need either to get close enough to see him or to find someone willing to tell us.”</p><p>The others nodded, but no one had any idea how to accomplish either option. Uhtred sighed, his bones aching and his chest cold. That hope that had been taking root in his heart was in serious danger of being snuffed out entirely.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments are always greatly appreciated.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Winchester</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sigebriht had brought his household troops, which number around three hundred. Burgred of Mercia had sent for half his own troop of five hundred men, who arrived along side Æthelholm, the ealdorman of Wiltshere who had replaced the treasonous Wulfhere, and his own guard of two hundred. The royal troops were some three hundred more. All together, they made a formidable, if modest, army of warriors. The Welsh had likely twice their number, though maybe less, but it was the Welsh fyrd and so a good number of them were poorly trained. </p><p>It was a gamble that Alfred was making. He knew it, but he had few options and no time to call up more men. Every day he delayed gave Hywel time to make another attack, to kill more of his people, and steal more of the church’s treasures. If Uhtred had been leading the men, a thousand warriors would have easily beaten Hywel’s forces, whatever they numbered, but Uhtred would never lead Alfred’s troops again and so he was forced to put them into the hands of Steapa and Aethelholm, who was young enough to be Alfred’s son. </p><p>He stood on the palace steps, with his head high, and surveyed the chaos. There was a sigh sitting on his lips, waiting to be released, and a worry squirming in his gut, but as  he looked out over the sea of commanders slowly organizing themselves into a line to ride out, there was a fiercely burning pride in his chest. These were his men, Mercian and West Saxon alike, fighting together for England, though they likely didn’t know it. </p><p>He wondered, as he stood and watched them ride out, if he was witnessing the birth of England or if that had happened that day in the throne room when the Mercian witan had appointed him King. Either way, he decided, England was about to get a little bit nearer and a little bit bigger than even he had dreamed. He wondered what Uhtred would say to sudden conquest of Wales. </p><p>He’d likely laugh, Alfred thought, since Uhtred had no fondness for Welshmen generally and would likely see the strategic benefit of no longer having a kingdom on Alfred’s western border. Accompanying the thought was a churning pain, like an ocean storm battering at his inside. Uhtred was not here to laugh at him or to offer an insolent observation. He was in the north fighting for a crown he did not want on orders he had never liked following. </p><p>Alfred sighed as the last horsemen disappeared through the gates, resigning himself to weeks of uneasy sleep and a nervous stomach as he waited for news of a victory or of a defeat. He trusted Steapa with his life and his children, but the man was by no means clever. Nor was he a planner, usually, but he’d spent quite a lot of time with Uhtred and his boys, and with Ragnar. Hopefully, it was to all their benefit. </p><p>The courtyard was quiet and deserted when he walked through heading, as always it seemed, to his library.He paused for a moment, to enjoy the flowers and the peace, but instead a sharp pain lanced through his belly, as though responding to his thoughts, and it stole his breath. He clutched at his middle and hoped that it was not a sign from God that he had misjudged his course.</p><p>“Lord, are you well? Should I fetch a healer?” </p><p>Alfred flinched, jerking his head up at the soft voice and found the Sister Leofgifu had joined him in the courtyard without him noticing. He offered her a pained smile and shook his head. “It is an ailment of the bowels. I have suffered with it for many years. The pain will pass in a moment, I’m sure.”</p><p>She frowned at him, her bright blue eyes darkening with concern. Alfred was struck again, how like Uhtred’s her eyes were. “An ailment of the bowels? You have pain in your stomach? Do you pass blood?”</p><p>He blinked at the invasive questions, but heard the echo of a lilting, Irish voice ask the same questions many years ago. “Yes.”</p><p>Leofgifu nodded, her face growing thoughtful. “There is a tonic I can prepare, Lord. It should ease the pain and help with the rest.”</p><p>He knew he was staring, but could not help it. Now that he’d made the connection with Iseult, he could not put the thought aside. Something about the shape of the girl’s face or the paleness of her skin reminded him of the shadow queen. He shook himself after a moment, as the pain eased, and straightened. “Forgive me. I do not mean to stare. It’s just…You remind me very strongly of someone I used to know, someone who also offered me a tonic for my ailment.”</p><p>The young nun smiled, her unscarred cheek dimpling. It was the first proper smile Alfred had seen on her face. “Yes. My aunt, Iseult.”</p><p>Her words hit Alfred like a blow. Iseult had been from a small settlement on the Irish coast. Alfred remembered her telling them about it during the months them spent together, living in the marshes. How on earth could the woman’s niece be <i>in Winchester</i>? It seemed impossible.</p><p>“Lord Uhtred,” she continued, “told me that she was with you all in the Somerset Marshes. She was a great healer, Lord. I am not so skilled, but I studied it well from my grandmother before I was stolen by the Danes, before Lord Uhtred saved my life.” The smile faded a little, to something more pensive. “I believe God brought me to you, Lord. To help you with your affliction.”</p><p>He was astonished by the very thought. The months he spent taking Iseult’s tonic were some of the easiest on his bowels since he could remember. He had felt healthier and more energized during that time than any other in his life. “Surely it must be, for it would otherwise be impossible that you are here. Praise God.”</p><p>The nun smiled and crossed herself. “If you’ll excuse me, Lord, I will begin gathering the supplies now and I shall make you the tonic as soon as I am able.”</p><p>“You have my most sincere gratitude, Sister.”</p><p>She bobbed an odd little bow and left him alone in the courtyard again. He exhaled, more curious than ever to know her story, but put the thought aside. He sighed again, thinking of the mound of paperwork on his desk, but headed on to the library anyway. </p><p>The library was once again devoid of copying monks, though Pyrlig was waiting for him. “Lord,” He said, dipping his head in a little bow. “There’s been a rider from Lundene. Ludeca should be passing through there in tomorrow, unless he’s unduly delayed.”</p><p>Alfred nodded, crossing to his desk and making note on his ongoing task list. “Good. That means we will hopefully be able to put the question of Coenred to rest.” He picked up a roll of parchment sitting on the corner of the desk and unrolled it. “There’s still his punishment for Sihtric.”</p><p>“Perhaps, Lord, letting him stew a while longer wouldn’t go amiss.” Pyrlig grinned.</p><p>Alfred bit down on a smile of his own and scanned the parchment so that the priest wouldn’t see his amusement. “Of course, if he…” Alfred trailed off, blinking down at the report in his hands. </p><p>He shook his head, and read the words again, hoping he had been mistaken. His heart kicked in his chest and started to race. A chill swept down his spine, followed quickly by a cold prickle of nervous sweat. He read the words a third time.</p><p>“Lord, what is the matter? Surely, it’s not about Coenred? He can’t be that much of a threat.” Pyrlig’s concerned voice broke through the haze of panic that was clouding Alfred’s head. He looked up, eyes wide, to see the concern in Pyrlig’s eyes sharpened. “What’s happened?”</p><p>“Pyrlig, I need you to ride north immediately. To Bebbenburg. Take whatever you need, but get there as soon as humanly possible.” Alfred barely recognized his own voice.</p><p>“Why, Lord? What’s wrong?”</p><p>“You must get there before the army marches on Eoferwic. If you do not reach them in time, Uhtred will die. They will all die.”</p><p>Pyrlig blinked at him, obviously not understanding, but Alfred’s fear seemed to be contagious. He could see it reflected back at him in the tense line of the priest’s shoulders. “I will ride this very hour, Lord, if you will only tell me what message to carry.”</p><p>“There is a new Earl in Eoferwic and he seems to have brought with him five hundred men or more. I fear that even with the men of Wessex that I sent with him and with Earl Ragnar’s army, they will not have enough men to take Eoferwic now. They will hurl themselves upon the rampart and break there.” Alfred’s throat was tightening, even as he choked out the words. He felt as though a great clawed hand had lodged itself inside his chest and could, at any moment, rip out all his guts and innards. </p><p>“Who is this Earl, Lord?”</p><p>“Ivarr Ubbasson, who has been in Irland making his name and gathering men. It seems he has come to take power in Northumbria. He’d been ruling through Guthred. But he wants revenge against the man who killed his father.” Pyrlig frowned at this, but Alfred shook his head. “Ivarr’s father, Ubba Lothbrokson, led his army against us at Cynuit Hill years ago, when I was newly crowned. Uhtred fought him in single combat and killed him by the sea as his men watched. Ubba was perhaps the greatest swordsman in Britain then. That title passed to Uhtred on that day and has been his since. But Uhtred is not as young as he was and Ivarr is still in the flush of youth, with five hundred Danish warriors at his command.”</p><p>There was horror on Pyrlig’s face and Alfred remembered abruptly that he and Uhtred were friends, of a sort. The fact meant nothing to him though, for he could barely think passed the terror that seemed to have filled his bones with fire, with an electric kind of energy that he knew he could not burn off. He was helpless, sitting here in his palace too far south even to send help. </p><p>He was going to be sick. This was his plan and it was going to throw Uhtred directly into death’s path. His plan that he was watching fall to pieces before his eyes. Uhtred commanded maybe a thousand men, but likely less. With Ivarr’s men, Guthred would command twice that number and a quarter of them seasoned warriors. It would be a slaughter, like should have happened at Ethandun, but Alfred feared there would be no miracles on this battlefield, no chance for Uhtred to save the day. His stomach felt like it had pushed up into the back of his throat and would soon expel its contents onto the floor. He tried to swallow it back down, breathing deeply for a moment, but the thoughts would not leave him. </p><p>He shuddered, dread rolling through him like thunder. “He’s marching just after Easter, Father. You must reach him before that. He must know.”</p><p>Pyrlig nodded, determination edging out the fear in his face. “Yes, Lord King. I will get there. I will warn him and then I’ll stay and fight with him. I will come back south with news of our victory or I will die protecting him, Lord, I swear to you.”</p><p>For a heartbeat, Alfred’s eyes blurred with tears, but he blinked them away and forced a smile. “Thank you, Father. I couldn’t…” His voice broke. He stopped, shaking his head. It was the not knowing, the uncertainty, the lack of control that soured Alfred’s roiling stomach and made his spine prickle with sweat. He swallowed, breathed for a moment, and spoke again. “Please, Father Pyrlig. Make haste.”</p><p>The man nodded, taking the parchment from him, and left, determined footsteps disappearing down the hall. </p><p>Alfred leaned back against the wall, unable to stand upright. Though he had never swum in any large body of water, he thought that perhaps this was what it would feel like to be drowned in the ocean. The thought was distant and macabrely amused, like it was occurring to someone else. </p><p>He counted his breathes, four in and four out, over and over again, until he could feel his galloping heart start to slow. There was an acidic taste on his tongue. He opened his eyes, not sure when he’d closed them and found himself on the floor. His back was against the cold stone, knees drawn up to his chest, and he was shivering. His face was wet with tears he didn’t remember shedding. He had no idea how long he’d been there and couldn’t remember if anyone had come in.</p><p>His chest was scraped out, raw and hollow. He lurched to his feet on stiff legs and stumbled across the room. He’d never been so thankful that his chambers were the next over from the library’s second entrance. He managed to get himself locked into his room and across to his bed before his legs gave out again. His guts had begun to pain him in a way that meant he’d be having trouble keeping his broth down for the next couple days, but it hardly even registered. </p><p>If Father Pyrlig didn’t reached Bebbenburg before the army marched, Uhtred was going to die. And Alfred will have been the one to send him to that death. Uhtred’s voice, the warm sharp syllables of his accented English echoed through Alfred’s head, real and immediate as though the man were speaking into his ear: <i>I am no king. I will never be a king</i>.  </p><p>When the tears came this time, Alfred could feel them spilling hot and fast, scalding his cheeks and staining his pillow. If the priest didn’t make it, Uhtred would not only never be a king, he’d never be a father or a husband, a friend or a lover, again either. </p><p>Weariness settled into Alfred’s bones and he begged for sleep, prayed for it with his entire soul, in the vain hope that sleep might stem the swelling tide of the images his mind was supplying of Uhtred’s broken body, his slit throat, his impaled guts, him hanging from a gallows or being lead naked through an enemy camp with a rope around his neck. Uhtred whipped or beaten or maimed. Every possible death that Alfred had ever encountered or ordered was suddenly a possible fate for the man he loved most.</p><p>A sob threatened to shake Alfred apart. To never see Uhtred again seemed a terrible tragedy, to never tell him to his face how deeply Alfred loved him, to never get the opportunity to hear him say it back, to never taste his lips or feel his skin beneath Alfred’s hands, to never run his fingertips over Uhtred’s hair and feel the texture of those elflocks he’d worn since his last return from Northumbria. Alfred wept, sobs occasionally rattling through his chest, until he had no more tears and his eyes burned hot with horror and fear. </p><p>Eventually, he slept.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments are always appreciated :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ragnar sent a scout out to infiltrate Guthred’s army in an attempt to discover who Guthred’s new earl was and what they might want. Uhtred had little hope he’d succeed at the latter, though the former seemed doable enough. The uncertainty, the waiting, put their plans on hold. They couldn’t ride out against Guthred until they had some idea of what they were facing. </p><p>It all crawled under Uhtred’s skin and burrowed there, leaving a creeping unease behind that had him restlessly pacing the ramparts whenever he had a spare moment. No matter what anyone said to coax him down it never worked for more than an hour at a time. </p><p>Two days had passed since Sihtric returned and the buzzing energy hadn’t abated. Uhtred had yet to calm enough even to read Alfred’s letter, which seemed to be burning like a beacon from his desk in the Lord’s study. Every time he thought about it, his chest ached, but he simply could not calm his nerves. Finally, as the sun set that second day, Osferth climbed the ramparts to join him in his silent vigil. </p><p>After a long moment, the baby monk turned to smile at him. “Lord, you have time. We needn’t take Eoferwic this spring, or this summer, or even this year.”</p><p>Uhtred shook his head, gritting his teeth against the truth that wanted to spill out. They had to take Eoferwic, because only then could Aethelflaed live as herself again. The lie was weighing heavily on too many people to wait much longer. “I can’t. I don’t. Osferth, I don’t expect you to understand, but…” Uhtred paused, turning his eyes from the horizon to meet the young man’s gaze. The normal bright blue of Uhtred’s eyes was dark with worry. “I feel as though I’ve been given this small window, this desperate chance, and if I don’t take it, if we don’t do it <i>now</i>, we’ll never succeed. I will fail and likely die in the attempt. My boy is much too young to rule here and our hold of Bebbenburg is too tenuous not to rule it well. If I fail now, everything will crumble.” <i>And I will have betrayed the promise I made to Alfred, who I will never see again,</i> he added silently, heart twisting at the thought.</p><p>Osferth nodded, a thoughtful look gathering on his face. “You’re right. I don’t understand it, but I can respect it. But surely, a few more days won’t damage our chances too badly. Spring has barely begun. Finan isn’t even likely to be back for another week or so. We can’t ride out without him either way.”</p><p>Uhtred exhaled, his eyes slipping closed for a beat as the unease dissipated a little. “You raise a good point, baby monk.” He said and opened his eyes again to smile.</p><p>Osferth grinned back. “Then come down to…“ He trailed off, as his eyes flicked to the horizon over Uhtred’s shoulder and stuck there.</p><p>Frowning, Uhtred turned to see what had caught Osferth’s attention and inhaled sharply. There was a rider picking their slow way down the path that his uncle had cut to the north gate. The man was dressed in mail, but had some kind of tunic overtop of it, with what looks like a banner stitched into it. The colors were vibrant, standing out against the slowly waking landscape, which meant that the garment had been expensive to make. Uhtred had never seen the like of it before, neither the banner nor the tunic itself, even in Winchester. </p><p>He glanced at Osferth, who had spent much more time at Winchester than Uhtred ever had, but the confusion clear on his face answered the question that Uhtred had opened his mouth to ask. “You don’t recognize it either. Alright, come on, baby monk. Let’s go see what new insanity is about to rain down on us.”</p><p>Osferth smiled weakly at that, still frowning at the rider, but followed Uhtred down off the ramparts. They dodged animals and people both, who had all learned that there was no need to bow or to dive out of the way of their Lord as he went passed. </p><p>Beocca was waiting at the edge of the courtyard, worry etched deeply into his features. “The guard said a rider approaches?” He called when they got near enough.</p><p>Uhtred nodded and jerked his head, indicating that Beocca should join them. The priest fell into step as they made their way down the street to the gates. “Uhtred,” He said, unusually hesitant. Uhtred cocked an eyebrow and shot him a look from the corner of his eyes, but said nothing. Beocca wrung his hands a little. “I know that you’re after the throne at Eoferwic, but…Do you understand what you’re getting yourself into? I’m worried that you do not understand the mountain of worries that await beneath that crown. Are you truly prepared for all that will be required of you?”</p><p>Uhtred huffed a breath though his nose. “Yes, Beocca.” He knew that he sounded like a schoolboy with slight whine in his words, but he couldn’t help it.</p><p>Beocca sighed gustily. “I have stood beside a King for many years now and witnessed the volume of work that is required of one. I fear you are not prepared.”</p><p>Uhtred shook his head, ignoring the ever-present squirm in his stomach at the thought of disappointing Beocca. “You fear that I am not a king. That I am not worthy to be a king because I am a heathen and a fighter and because, once upon a time, I was a very poor student.”</p><p>Beocca shook his head, scowling, but he did not deny the accusation.</p><p>“Beocca, just because I can wield a sword and shield well does not mean that I am stupid. Just because Alfred can wield a pen and ink well, but barely lift a sword properly at times, does not make him weak.” </p><p>He stopped walking, forcing the other two to stop as well. Osferth shifted uncomfortably. </p><p>Uhtred sighed. “A kingdom is merely a very large and very complicated estate, Beocca. It requires too much reading and too little fighting, but it will not be substantially different from running Coccham, except that now instead of negotiating with neighboring estates, I will be negotiating with neighboring kingdoms. One of which is already an ally. There will be money to worry about, tithes and taxes to levy, decisions to be made and matters to settle, laws to be written and borders to be established. I will have to get a secretary who can write well because my penmanship is poor. I will have a circle of advisors and likely some kind of witan to listen to and an army to lead against my enemies and the enemies of my allies.” Uhtred paused, his lips twitching a little and met Beocca’s wide-eyed gaze when he turned toward him. “And, if I need assistance, I can always ask Finan.”</p><p>Beocca’s expression softened into a frown, but Uhtred could see Osferth’s grin out of the corner of his eyes. The boy might not have been with them long, but he’d slotted in easily with Finan and Sihtric. Which meant that he already knew what Uhtred was about to share with the priest.</p><p>“Why on earth would Finan be of help?” Confusion colored the priest’s voice.</p><p>Uhtred couldn’t hold back his grin. “Because Finan is a prince. He was meant to be a King, before he was enslaved.”</p><p>Beocca’s mouth dropped open and he gaped. He tried twice to speak, but clearly couldn’t manage to form words. Uhtred laughed, short burst of sound that was echoed by the baby monk at his side, before leaving the stunned priest behind to stare after them. Osferth was still chuckling when they got to the wall. </p><p>“Lord! A rider!” One of the guards called down once Uhtred was within earshot.</p><p>“How near?”</p><p>The guard turned to glance over his shoulder. “Imminent, Lord. Should we open the gates.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded, crossing his arms to wait. He wished he’d thought to fetch Ragnar or Gisela to greet this stranger with him. He had a funny feeling running down his spine that this oddly clad rider was going to upend the ordered chaos that was life at Bebbenburg.</p><p>He was right.</p><p>“Lord, he claims to be an emissary from the Kings of Denmark.” The guard called, as the gates were slowly pushed open. </p><p>Uhtred’s brow furrowed. He’d been expecting some word from Eoferwic or maybe from the Scots to the north, some dark news that would ruin their plans further, even a ransom demand from the new Lord ruling through Guthred, telling him that Finan had been taken. He was not expecting a messenger from halfway round the world. He hadn’t yet taken the throne at Eoferwic. He was not a king and so what was an emissary from Denmark doing here so soon? He shared a look with Osferth, who seemed just as baffled.</p><p>The rider had dismounted by the time the gates fully opened. He was a tall man, young and blond and broad in shining mail. There was a battle axe at his hip and a long sword across his back. He looked every inch a warrior, though his features were delicate and he was clean shaven. Uhtred watched him move and wondered that kings of a distant land would send a warrior as emissary to a Lord.</p><p>The man’s pale eyes scanned the crowd, skimming over Osferth to come to rest on Uhtred. The man met his gaze for a heartbeat before abandoning the hold he had on his horse and going to one knee. “Lord Uhtred Ragnarsson.” His voice was low and melodic, like summer honey or spring rains. “I ask leave to enter here and present to you a gift and message from Sigfred and Halfdan, Kings of Denmark.”</p><p>Uhtred blinked. So they knew that he was no king yet. The situation grew more curious by the minute. “Of course. Come in.” He said with a smile, spreading his arms wide. “Be welcome.”</p><p>Uhtred called a hovering stable boy over to take charge of the man’s horse, but pointedly did not instruct the guards to take his weapons, though he himself wore none. For all that Sigfred and Halfdan ruled a country a world apart from England, they were still Danes. They would respect a show of strength. And, Uhtred thought as he straightened his shoulders, am I not the son of Ragnar the Fearless?</p><p>The boy took away the horse and Uhtred sent Osferth to gather the regular council in the hall and to tell Gisela to order a feast. The stranger watched him, his eyes keen though his face was blank. </p><p>“Come. I will take you to my hall. Surely you must be weary if you’ve come all the way from Denmark.”</p><p>The man shrugged, but his handsome face split into a lopsided grin. “I do have a mighty thirst, Lord.”</p><p>Uhtred laughed and clapped him on the back. “Well then, we must bring you ale to satisfy this thirst. Tell me, messenger, what do they call you?”</p><p>The man’s grin faltered, but did not disappear. “Most often, Lord, I am simply called thrall.”</p><p>Uhtred inhaled, sharp and suddenly angry. The Kings of Denmark send a warrior-slave to him with a message, but not one who was given a name? It would at least explain his clean-shaven face and chin length hair. “But thrall is not a name.”</p><p>“My mother called me Warsz before I was taken by the Danes, Lord.”</p><p>Surprise stole Uhtred’s anger. “I do not recognize that name.”</p><p>Warsz nodded. “I am a Pole, Lord. You’ve likely never met one of my people before. I was born even further east than Denmark.”</p><p>A curl of interest flared in Uhtred’s chest, but he didn’t have time to pursue the thought. The doors of the hall were already open when they rounded the corner to cross the courtyard. Light was glowing softly from within. Uhtred led Warsz through the bustle of life, dodging an apple cart and casually steadying an old woman as she wobbled after a toddler. If Uhtred had glanced back at his guest, he would have seen that Warsz’s eyes had gone very wide and that a quiet kind of awe had settled onto his face, but Uhtred did not glance back. </p><p>He took the stairs to the hall two at a time, bounding up and through the doors with a renewed excitement. Some of the heavy weight had lifted from him, for the moment anyway, and he could breath more easily. Curiosity over the Twin Kings’ message momentarily distracted him from his brooding.</p><p>Stiorra came pelting across the hall to him the moment he appeared through the doors. He caught her up and spun her, as she squealed with laughter. Settling her on his hip, he grumbled, “You’re getting much too heavy for this. Maybe we should stop feeding you.”</p><p>Stiorra laughed against his shoulder, delight making her small face glow. “You won’t, Papa. You like that I’m heavy. It means I’ll be big and strong when I am older.” She wrapped her spindly arms around his neck and hugged him as though she hadn’t seen him for days.</p><p>He squeezed her back, grinning into her hair as he carried her across the room, back to her mother, who was smiling indulgently at them and suckling Tora. “You’re right. I do. But there are some very important and very boring things that we must discuss with our new friend Warsz, so why don’t you go say hello to him and then find a friend to play with?”</p><p>Stiorra pulled back to scowl at him, rolling her eyes, but nodded. “Yes, Papa.”</p><p>He let her down and she marched up to the messenger, who was staring at her like he’d never seen a child before. She smiled up at him. “Hello, Warsz. It’s nice to meet you. I have to go now. I’m never allowed to stay and listening to anything really interesting.” She shook her head in disappointed, but left without a fuss.</p><p>Uhtred smiled after her, wondering that anyone so small could fill his heart so well. He shook the thought away and refocused on Warsz. The man looked completely lost. Uhtred smiled. “This is my wife, the Lady Gisela, and our newest daughter, Tora.” He gestured. “And this is my brother, Ragnar, and his woman, Brida. That’s Osferth, Beocca, my sister Thyra, and Abbess Hild.” He turned to the gathered group, all clustered around the circular table. “This is Warsz, a messenger from the Kings of Denmark.”</p><p>“Messenger and gift, Lord.” The man said, voice soft.</p><p>Uhtred turned back to frown at Warsz, rolling his suddenly tense shoulders. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“My Lord Kings, Sigfred and Halfdan, sent me as a gift to you, along with a letter of great tidings. I am trained as a warrior and a bowman. They instructed that you were to be my new master, Lord, and that I am to do as you instruct me.” The man’s eyes had dropped to the floor, but he stood perfectly still.</p><p>Uhtred’s nostrils flared and a quick flash of rage skittered up his spine, before he took a deep breath. “If you are to be a gift to me, Warsz, than I instruct you to be free.”</p><p>The man’s eyes flew up to Uhtred’s face, round and nearly bugling, before he blinked once, twice, three times in rapid succession and then stared. “Excuse me, Lord?” Warsz asked, voice choked.</p><p>“Warsz, I was once a slave and I will carry the scars of it on my back and in my heart until my dying breath. I do not keep slaves and slaves who enter the fortress are immediately freed, no matter who their masters are. If you still wish to serve me, you may swear an oath and enter my service, but I will not own you and I will never ask of you that which I would not do myself.” Uhtred met the man’s gaze as he spoke, calm and steady. </p><p>Warsz’s eyes widened and they slipped away, flitting around the room, from face to face. It was Sihtric who stepped forward to calm him. “Warsz, I am Sihtric Kjartansson, though for years I was called only thrall. I was a slave until Lord Uhtred took me into his service and saved me from it. We are all outsiders here, those who behave in ways that society would reject. I was a slave. Osferth is a bastard. Hild is a nun who is a warrior. Beocca is a Saxon priest who married a Dane. Thyra is a healer who can command dogs to kill at her will. Earl Ragnar, the elder son, swore his oath to Lord Uhtred, his little brother. Even Lord Uhtred is a Saxon and a Dane, a freed slave twice over and a Lord. We are none of us what the world tells us to be. Only what the gods command us to be and what Lord Uhtred asks of us.”</p><p>Uhtred cocked an eyebrow at Sihtric who flushed dark and ducked his head to hide his smile. Uhtred snorted, grinning. “He’s right. We are a motley crew.”</p><p>Warsz cleared his throat nervously, drawing their attention back to him. His eyes were still wide, but his shoulders were back and his spine straight. “If I am truly free, Lord, I will pledge both sword and axe to you this instant. I never thought I would be able to chose my own path, but in what little I have seen of you, I have found a kind man, who protects his people. It would be an honor to serve you.”</p><p>Uhtred smiled, unable to keep a faint blush from staining his cheeks. Ragnar grinned at him and laughed. “He is, at that. The fiercest swordsman in Britain and a heart to match.”</p><p>Uhtred waved away the comment, the blush darkening to a light pink. “Settle in first, boy, and then we can worry about oaths. Now, you have a letter, I think?”</p><p>Warsz nodded and stepped forward to offer to Uhtred the letter he’d had tucked into that odd tunic. Uhtred took it, glancing down to see that the seal matched the one on Warsz’s chest. It depicted a snake, twisting into a peculiar shape, biting its own tail. Uhtred broke the seal and opened the letter. He blinked down at it, his brow furrowing at its odd formatting. </p><p>The page was divided into two columns. The one on the left was in Danish and the one on the right was in English. Uhtred had never seen a letter quite like it before and wondered of the Danish read the same as the English or not. He wished briefly that he’d asked Hild to bring Leofgifu with her as she was the only person he knew who could read Danish, but she likely would have insisted on staying behind anyway. He brushed the thought aside to scan his way down the English half of the letter.</p><p>His jaw tensed as he read and the nails of his free hand dug into his palm, as his hand curled into a fist. It wasn’t a long letter, but Uhtred wasn’t a particularly skilled reader, so it took him several minutes to work his way through it. By the end, he was wound tight as a bowstring and just as likely to snap.</p><p>“Well?” Gisela finally asked, when it seemed as though Uhtred was not going to share the letter’s contents. She smiled encouragingly at him as she shifted Tora in her arms.</p><p>Uhtred sighed, trying to fight back his frustration. “It seems that word of my relationship with Alfred has reached even distant Denmark.”</p><p>Ragnar frowned, confusion written plain on his face, but Gisela just shook her head. “No matter how long you live, my love,” she said, unknowingly echoing Uhtred’s own thoughts. “you will never escape Alfred’s bed.”</p><p>Uhtred grit his teeth. “That fact becomes more clear with every passing day.” He shook his head. “I can deal with this later. They don’t seem to be expecting a response. Warsz, go with Sihtric. He’ll set up with food and ale and a place to sleep. Thyra, could you—“</p><p>But the sound of the bell cut him off. Everyone tensed, listening and counting the tolls. One meant a rider, two a threat from without, and three meant a fire or threat from within. The first toll echoed to silence, none following after, so Uhtred glanced at Ragnar, who nodded. Gisela sighed, but joined Hild and Thyra in returning to the small garden plot that ran along the back of the hall, between it and the high walls. The rest scattered. </p><p>Uhtred and Ragnar headed back to the north gate. Sihtric and Warsz followed them until they passed the alehouse. When the two brothers arrived at the gate, the guards were tense. Uhtred could hear the thunder of a horse at full gallop and exchanged a worried glance with Ragnar. </p><p>“Lord,” The same guard as before, a man named Rollo, called. “It’s a priest.”</p><p>“A priest?” Uhtred said aloud, surprise and confusion furrowing his brow. Ragnar shrugged, when Uhtred looked to him. “Let him through.”</p><p>There was nothing to do but wait as the gates were opened, but the minute they parted wide enough for a man to pass through, Uhtred heard the rider rein in his mount and leap off. His feet hit the ground with a thunk and beat a loud rhythm as he ran for the opening gates. “Lord Uhtred!” He began shouting before he was even inside the fort. “I must see Lord Uhtred!”</p><p>“Pyrlig!” Uhtred cried, recognizing the man’s voice. “What on earth is he doing here?”</p><p>Ragnar cocked a brow at him. “You know too many priests, brother.”</p><p>It was Uhtred’s turn to shrug. “A hazard of spending time in Winchester.”</p><p>Pyrlig appeared not a moment later, but he skidded to a halt when he spotted Uhtred standing just inside the gates. He panted heavily for a minute or two, before shoving a scroll at him. “Lord! Praise God you have not marched! Praise God I have found you still here.” Uhtred rolled his eyes, but the priest just barreled on. “Lord, the King sent me. There’s an Earl in Eoferwic, with five hundred men or more. You can’t go!”</p><p>Uhtred arched a brow at him. “I know there is, Pyrlig. I’m not a complete idiot. Does Alfred think leaving Wessex has left me incapable of waging war now?” The words were first incredulous, but ended bitter.</p><p>Pyrlig just shook his head, still panting, and shoved the scroll forward again. Uhtred took it, reluctant, and unrolled it. It was one of Alfred’s Spy Reports. Sighing at so much reading, Uhtred skimmed the paper. “Ah. Well…”</p><p>Ragnar scowled. “What?”</p><p>Uhtred blew out a breath. “We have the answer to our questions at least. The Earl is Ivarr Ubbasson.”</p><p>Ragnar nodded, wrinkling his nose. “Revenge then. That explains Ulf, sloppy as it was.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded, considering, the vaguest spark of a madcap idea forming in the back of his mind. “It was. I didn’t know Ubba even had a son, so he couldn’t have been more than a child when I killed his father. Which means he’s likely barely grown to manhood. But he already commands half a dozen ships. What Alfred’s report doesn’t say is how that came to be.”</p><p>This didn’t seem to bother Ragnar or Pyrlig, who had finally gotten his breath back and was staring at Uhtred. “Well, I’ve never heard of him.” Ragnar said.</p><p>“I suppose it doesn’t matter either way.” Uhtred said, but was not convinced. There was something in the Earl’s youth and in what they’d seen of him so far that had Uhtred thinking. </p><p>The hope burned a little brighter in his heart and a smile tried to tug at his mouth. He’d need to discuss things with his council, but he might just have a plan to win the throne without a single drop of blood spilled on a battlefield.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments, as always, are a joy and a delight :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Winchester</h2></a>
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    <p>Alfred spent the next week and a half with gritty eyes, an aching body, and fire in his guts. He had little memory of that day with Pyrlig in his library, but one burning thought stood out from the blurred events and lived inside his wretched soul: There was a new Earl pulling Guthred’s strings and Uhtred was going to die.</p><p>Each day was much like the last. He woke, rising as swiftly as his body would let him, dressed, and hurried to the chapel. He was certain that there were meetings to fill his mornings and reports to be reviewed, but he could think of none of that. From the grey dawn until the sun had begun to climb the sky, Alfred could think of nothing but Uhtred, could do nothing but beg God for Uhtred’s life, his safety. </p><p>The chilled, stone room was always empty when he arrived, the sun not yet peaking above the horizon. Each day, he fell to his knees before the alter and groped for prayer. None of his practiced rosary or ritual ever came to mind, only an overwhelming need for Uhtred to live. Not victory in Northumbria, not the lives of the men he’d sent north, not Beocca or Pyrlig. Just Uhtred. There was selfishness at the core of this, a need to see the man he loved again, to absolve himself of the sickening, overpowering guilt that grew moment to moment inside him.</p><p>His pleading words echoed back at him from the unforgiving altar. On the day that Pyrlig should finally reach Bebbenburg, Alfred found himself once again kneeling in the chapel. “Christ, Lord, please spare him this fate that I have unknowingly consigned him to.” His voice cracked and his eyes stung with fresh tears. “The sin here, the pride and avarice, is mine to bear. He did not want this. He did not want a crown upon his head. He is doing this because of me and now he will die because of me. I cannot bear it, Lord, that he should die because of me.” </p><p>He had sent men to die for him before. He had lost loved ones in battle and disease. Yet somehow, the thought of Uhtred dying for Alfred’s own ambition was a burden too heavy for him to bear. It settled on his shoulders like a boulder and for the first time in his life, Alfred felt sympathy for the old Roman story of Atlas.</p><p>“I cannot bear it that he should die so far from here, where I cannot see him one last time, where I cannot speak with him or hear his voice. Where I cannot touch his hand or take his insolence.” His fingers stung for wanting to rest against Uhtred’s skin. He had never felt a desire like this in all his life. He could not tell whether it was sent from the devil to test him or from the Lord to punish him. It certainly felt like punishment. It felt, Alfred thought, a little like dying by inches. “But spare him this, Lord, and I will be content never to see him again. I will attempt to exorcise this sin from my soul and love him no more, so long as he should live.” Alfred’s voice finally failed, clogged with tears and strained as it was. </p><p>He fell silent, pressing his forehead to the base of the altar, both in abasement and because the stone felt cool against his feverish flesh. </p><p>He could not continue on this way. He knew it and yet was powerless to prevent it. He had spent the last week and a half feeling as though he were wrapped in cotton batting, immeasurably distant from the life all around him. It had all drained of color and he of energy. </p><p>He had wasted too much time in this state already. There was too much for him to do and too many people depending on him. And yet, all he could think of was Uhtred’s broken, battered body abandoned on a battlefield, all he could do was push on as he had been. What choice did he have? </p><p>So consumed was he by the cascade of horrible images playing in his head, that he did not hear when the chapel door opened to admit Sister Leofgifu. She closed the door quietly behind her and approached Alfred as gently as she could, calling, “Lord King.” </p><p>Alfred jerked and spun around, knocking one knee off the altar platform and  nearly loosing his balance. He caught himself at the last moment, but could not stop himself from staring at Leofgifu. No one had disturbed his solitary prayer since Pyrlig left and he had managed to make sure he was presentable whenever he left the chapel, but he hadn’t even looked in a glass today. He was undoubtedly a mess, his hair disheveled, his cheeks tear stained and sallow, eyes red and puffy. He was sure that he’d never looked less kingly in his life. But the nun merely smiled kindly at him and offered him a small bowl, similar to the one that Iseult herself had used.</p><p>His throat constricted and he swallowed convulsively, trying to clear it. “Thank you, Sister.” He said, voice barely above a whisper, as he took the tonic. His hands trembled, but he managed to keep it steady enough to drink without spilling. </p><p>“Lord, you appear very distressed this morning. Is everything all right?” She asked, pointedly not looking at him, as she knelt by his side.</p><p>He cleared his throat, fully prepared to say yes and try to get himself under control, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was, “No, Sister. I have done a monstrous thing and have likely killed someone very dear to me. Possibly many someones.”</p><p>He blinked, feeling his cheeks go hot, and turned back to the altar so as to avoid her reaction. </p><p>She simply nodded. “And did you know the consequences of your action when you took it?”</p><p>“No.” His voice was papery thin.</p><p>“Were the consequences something that you should have anticipated? Were they a likely or reasonable outcome of your actions?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” He admitted.</p><p>Leofgifu nodded again and they knelt before the altar in silence for a long time. Finally, she crossed herself and stood. “Lord, if there is one thing that I have learned about the Lord Uhtred since I came to live at Coccham, it is that he is very clever in everything but love and that he is beloved of God, for he does not often fail and he always lands on his feet.” She smiled down at his astonishment. “If it is he about whom you are worried, be a little more at ease. For surely whatever you have done cannot be so bad that it will be what defeats Lord Uhtred. He will die in his bed decades from now, ancient and fat and just as arrogant as he is now.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyes went wide and his lips parted on at exhaled. Her aunt’s face overlaid the nun’s and he felt as though he were speaking with a shadow. “You know this?”</p><p>The nun simply smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lord, with your tonic.”</p><p>So saying, she dropped the little bowl into a pouch that hung from her belt, tucked her hands into her sleeves, and left. He watched her go. Her words left him chilled, but calmer. His heart beat a steady sound in his chest and his stomach no longer felt as though it were on fire. The world was still dull and faded, but he wasn’t so distant from it as he had been. He could not be sure if it was his state of mind or her tonic that had done it, but he was grateful all the same. He sent up a quick prayer of gratitude and crossed himself.</p><p>Odda was waiting for him in his library when he arrived, having combed his hair and broken his fast. There were deep lines etched into Odda’s face, the angry red of his scar more obvious given the paleness of his face. </p><p>“Lord.” He said, when Alfred shut the door. </p><p>It was too early for the monks to have arrived, so they had a bit of privacy. “What has happened, Lord Odda?”</p><p>“There has been word from Wales, Lord. There has been a great victory at Caerleon, but Sigebriht was killed, Lord. And he has no heir.” </p><p>Alfred nodded, lips pursing. He crossed to his desk and made a note to review possible candidates to for Sigebriht’s Kentish estate. When he looked back up, Odda was still waiting patiently. He arched a brow. “Go on.”</p><p>“Hywel is also dead, but his brother has declared himself King. He holes himself up in Dinefwr, the Welsh stronghold, and has put out a call for men from the outlying villages and from the north. Steapa and Aethelholm are planning to march on Dinefwr, but Deheubarth is a wild country. The distance from Caerleon to Dinefwr is barely a day’s ride, but there is some worry about bands of wild men riding out of the hills to attack them on the journey.”</p><p>Alfred frowned, running numbers in his head. “Do they need reinforcements?”</p><p>Odda shook his head, but did not look entirely certain. “The messenger didn’t say, so I would suggest not. They did not lose many in the battle, a few score men. Under one hundred. The Welsh casualties were numerous, but no one seems to be sure how numerous. Many of the survivors fled to the forests and hills, which are dense and thorny in that area of Wales.”</p><p>Alfred huffed out through his nose. The war with Wales was proceeding much quicker than anticipated. Either Steapa had done a better job of hiding his small army from Hywel’s scouts, Hywel was a fool who had not set scouts, or else something more than raiding was amiss in Wales. How could an army of thousand or more fall to Steapa’s force? Alfred had sent him to harry the Welsh, to fight as much as was prudent, and send a request for more men when it became necessary. He would not have predicted that Steapa would triumph with only that first force. </p><p>The back of Alfred’s neck prickled. He thought suddenly of the new earl at Eoferwic and his arrival from Irland. Where had Ivarr Ubbasson landed? </p><p>He shook the thought away. He’d send to Bishop Erkenwald for a young priest or two and send them to Wales. He needed a better idea of what was going on there. He cursed himself for being a fool not to have done it before the armies attacked, but he trusted Steapa’s judgment. </p><p>“Hmm. Send word to Somerset and to Coenred to send us three hundred men each. We’ll send them along to Steapa anyway. Having a greater force to command will be no detriment, however unnecessary they might be.”</p><p>Odda nodded. “Yes, Lord.” He turned to go, but stopped. “You are looking much improved today, Lord. I am glad of it. We have been worried of late.”</p><p>Alfred managed a small, thin-lipped smile. “I am feeling much improved, Lord Odda.”</p><p>The man bowed and left, leaving Alfred to stare at the heaping pile of scrolls and parchments that littered his desk. He clearly had been neglecting his paperwork since that day with Pyrlig. His lungs went tight, but he pushed the memory away. He’d work through these and then he’d send for Edward. It was time the boy took up some royal duties.</p><p>He reached for the top scroll, but before his fingers even closed around it, there was a knock at the library door. “Come!” He called, frowning. There were so few people left in Winchester who would come directly to his library without requesting permission…</p><p>Aelswith opened the door. Just the sight of her made Alfred smile. She looked grim, her hair once against tied off under her chin and her cheeks pale. “Are you alright, my dear?” He asked as she took a silent step into the room, concern driving his heart to beat a little faster.</p><p>“I am well, husband. Simply tired. I wished to speak with you. The flow of peasants has slowed nearly to a stop, but there are some seven hundred souls set up outside the north gate.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyes went wide. He gestured her into a chair at the table and then joined her. Seven hundred peasants was more than his coffers could sustain for any extended period of time. They’d need to see them all settled somewhere, perhaps back on their own land. Judging how long the war would take was nearly impossible and a task Alfred would not attempt, but with Hywel dead and his brother occupied in Dinefwr, the raids would likely have stopped.</p><p>“What do you propose?” Alfred asked, blinking himself out of his thoughts.</p><p>“The lack of new refugees coming south suggests, I think, that the raiding has stopped. The Welsh are going to be preoccupied with the war and after that they’ll be subjects of the English crown. I was thinking that we could escort them back to their lands. That way, their escort can discover who their lord is and press him on why his peasant came all the way here instead of seeking refuge with him.”</p><p>Alfred’s eyebrows soared. He had not even considered that they should have all gone to their lord. “Indeed. A wise course. I will arrange it with the guard. They shouldn’t need more than forty or fifty men to escort them. Even a large band of raiders would think twice about attacking such a large group.”</p><p>She nodded, smiling at him fully for the first time in what felt like forever. He was helpless to do anything, but smile back. She was here before him, clearly feeling generous for the first time in so long. Alfred met her gaze for a long moment, considering.</p><p>Now that Wessex was taking Wales, Alfred could justify sending Uhtred help in his fight against Ivarr, enough men to win against the Danish hoard. A Danish warlord that no one knew was a loose cannon that Alfred did not want on his northern border, especially if he’d used Wales to land. The Mercian witan would agree. Even the Wessex witan would likely agree. </p><p>And if he could send help to Uhtred, then Uhtred would be king of Northumbria and Aethelflaed would show her true self again. It was a risk, telling Aelswith that Aethelflaed was alive. Aethelflaed could very well die on the blade of a Danish warlord, if Pyrlig failed to warn Uhtred of the danger. But if there was ever a time to sow the seeds, it would be now. </p><p>He took a deep breath. “My dear,” he began, slow and unsure how he would be feeling if he had only just discovered it. “I was going to come see you this morning. There is a rumor from the north…” He trailed off, waiting for her reaction.</p><p>Aelswith went rigid, her back snapping straight and her face going blank. “Oh yes?”</p><p>He was not sure what she was expecting, but he’d obviously lost most of her goodwill already. She had not left yet, so he soldiered on, ignoring how his stomach knotted. </p><p>“There is a rumor of Aethelflaed. She has been spotted north of Hadrian’s Wall.”</p><p>Aelswith’s breath stuttered abruptly into a sob. Her hands flew to her mouth  and her eyes filled with tears. Alfred had to check the impulse to reach out to her, to take her in his arms and comfort her. It was no longer his right. He had done this to her. She seemed to shrink before his eyes, her shoulders curling under protectively. He gripped the arms of his chair so hard, as he watched her, his knuckles paled.</p><p>“Is it true?” She choked out. </p><p>He nodded. “As near as I can tell. One of the priests that I sent north added it to his report.” He’d scratched the report out himself, in his best approximation of an undereducated hand, months ago in preparation for this very day. Only he never thought that on the day he told her his lie, he’d have to accompany it with the very real possibility that Aethelflaed would die anyway. “But…Aelswith, the north is at war. Or very soon will be.”</p><p>Her eyes, which had slipped shut on her tears, flew open again. She stared at him. “What?”</p><p>His pulse leapt and his own breathing went ragged. Images of Uhtred’s broken body flooded his mind again, only now his daughter lay at his side. Hist stomach soured as he tried to push the images down. “Uhtred marches on Eoferwic and Ivarr Ubbasson, Northumbria’s newest Earl, marches on Uhtred. I sent Father Pyrlig to warn him, but…I’m afraid he might have been too late. I’m afraid that Aethelflaed will get caught in the conflict.” His throat constricted with the truth of that confession. Telling her truths was a habit he’d fallen out of, but now it felt like tearing out his own heart. But because he’d told her one truth, another was pressing on his teeth and another behind that. “I’m afraid we’ll never see her again, that she’ll get caught up in the fighting somehow and we’ll never know. I’m afraid that Father Beocca is going to march out with Uhtred and be killed. I’m afraid Father Pyrlig will ride into a war and get killed. I’m afraid that Uhtred will march unknowing into a slaughter and be killed. I’ll never see any of them again. I’m terrified every minute of every day since I read the report about Ivarr’s army at Eoferwic. I could hardly breath through the fear before and now that Aethelflaed is there as well, it’s suffocating.” </p><p>Alfred ran out of word, gasping for breath, his chest heaving, as he stared at his wife. She stared back, his horror reflected in her eyes. “Is there nothing we can do for them?” Her voice when it finally came was barely a whisper.</p><p>Alfred, his chest feeling like shattered glass, raw and bleeding, simply shook his head.</p><p>She came to him then, flinging herself to the floor at his feet and wrapping her arms around his waist. She pressed her face into his thigh, her tears soaking quickly through his robes. He folded over onto her, seeking comfort of his own, pressing tightly to her warmth and fighting tears. The embrace was awkward and it made his back ache, but he could not bring himself to release her. </p><p>For the first time since Uhtred rode out from Winchester without looking back, Alfred was not alone. And yet, if he could have spared Aelswith this pain, her echo of his own fear and uncertainty, he would gladly remain alone for the rest of his life. He could do neither, so he simply held her and prayed to God that Uhtred survived whatever might be coming.</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Bebbenburg</h2></a>
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    <p>“Uhtred, my love. You understand that your plan is completely insane.” Gisela’s voice was soft, caught somewhere between wondering and horrified. She followed him into the Lord’s bedchamber that they shared and locked the door behind them.</p><p>Uhtred grinned at her over his shoulder, showing his still white teeth and dimples, and moved to shrug off his armor. She rolled her eyes, but took the armor from him to stack in the corner. He reached up to unlace his tunic and sighed. “I do know that it’s an enormous risk, but there is no reputation in only fighting safe battles.”</p><p>“You have reputation aplenty. You don’t need to grow it. You killed Ubba, you broke the shield wall at Ethandun, you stole a princess from Beamfleot. You helped take Dunholm and you took Bebbenburg! Killing Ivarr isn’t going to grow your reputation that much! He’s barely more than a puppy!” Her voice climbed a little, going breathy, as it always did when she was scared. </p><p>Uhtred dropped his tunic onto the bed and reached for her. She came easily into his arms and buried her face in his chest. He could feel the dampness of her fresh tears against his skin. His heart throbbed at the thought that he was making her cry, but he could see no other course to take. “You are all the stars in my sky, Gisela. You know that I would never wish to leave you. So believe me when I say that I can beat him. But it isn’t killing Ivarr that makes the plan important. It’s what comes after. You know that.”</p><p>She sighed against him, breath ghosting over one of his nipples and making him shiver. “Yes, alright. I understand that it’s important. It’s also insane. The risk might outweigh the reward and you have no idea that they will all behave the way you want.”</p><p>Uhtred pulled away and cupped her face in his left hand, leaving his other curled around her back to rest over her hip. “Cast the runesticks. Tell me I am wrong.” She shook her head, staring helplessly up at him. “We will make a sacrifice to Thor before we march, just to make sure. I’ll give him Smoca.”</p><p>Her eyes went wide at that for she knew how much he loved his warhorse, but she nodded, satisfied. She stepped back from him and went to turn down the bedclothes as he finished undressing. When he climbed into bed, she draped herself over him, resting her head against his chest again. He pulled her close, toying with her hair, as he ran through supplies in his mind. They lay in peaceful quiet, sharing warmth and simple intimacy for so long that Uhtred began to drift a little. </p><p>The touch of her fingers against his flesh startled him, bringing him fully awake and back to the present, but not enough to dislodge her. He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. “You are far from here. Are you in Winchester again? Have you read Alfred’s newest letter?” </p><p>He glanced down at her and nearly smiled at the sly look in her eyes. He was glad to see the fear had gone, even if it was at his own expense. “No. And I will not.”</p><p>Her face crumpled into a confused scowl. It made her nose wrinkle and her cheeks puff out. Uhtred fought down the urge to drop a kiss on that wrinkled nose. It was not worth the lecture about taking her seriously that would follow. “Why?” She finally asked when it was clear he would not elaborate, sounding indignant. “What? Never?”</p><p>Uhtred snorted, turning his eyes up to the ceiling. “I do not have that much self-control. You know me better than that. I will read it after we take Eoferwic. I have no idea what it might say and I cannot afford the distraction it could prove. Its existence is distracting enough. I cannot afford to make it worse.” He glanced back at her.</p><p>Gisela rolled her eyes, but slumped back against him. “I suppose that sounds reasonable. I am burning with curiosity though.”</p><p>Now it was Uhtred’s turn to roll his eyes. “I’ll not tell you what he says, so my reading it will not satisfy your curiosity.”</p><p>She huffed against his chest, not quite a laugh. “Of course, it will. You will either float around for days after with your head in the clouds or you will mope about like someone’s killed your favorite hound. Which it is will be my answer.”</p><p>“I do not mope—!”</p><p>She did laugh this time, close enough that her breath whispering over his nipple again. He felt it tingle all the way down his spine. “Of course you would. You love him and if he says something that you interpret as scolding or rejection, you’ll mope.”</p><p>Uhtred exhaled, feeling put-upon. “I’ve told you, Gisela, I don’t—“</p><p>“Uhtred Ragnarsson! Stop lying to me.” She leaned up to meet his eyes, her own fiery and determined. “I am sick to death of your denials. Or are you lying to yourself? Because it is clear to me and likely to anyone with eyes that you love him. That you want him.”</p><p>Something tightened around his ribs at her words, strangling his breath in his throat. “Gisela…” He managed, sounding choked and feeling like there wasn’t quite enough air in the room with them all of a sudden. He was reminded of his second baptism.</p><p>She shook her head and smiled. “Uhtred, loving Alfred does not mean you don’t love me as well. Just because Tora was born, does that mean you no longer love Stiorra?”</p><p>He frowned at her, but managed to catch his breath. “You know it doesn’t,” he said, his voice coming out thin and reedy.</p><p>“See? You may love me. You may desire me wholeheartedly. It does not mean that you do not also love and desire Alfred.”</p><p>Her smile had gentled and the look in her eyes now was kind. Love seemed to glow from her and Uhtred was at a loss. What had he ever done to deserve this gift she seemed to be giving him? Still… “I do not want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. You are and always will be my heart.”</p><p>“I know, my love. I am not hurt by it.”</p><p>Her tone was so sincere that Uhtred swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat and whispered, “You’re right. I do love him.” He inhaled, cleared his throat, and tried again. He told himself very firmly that Gisela had asked for this. “But I hate him too, just a little. It sinks its claws into my belly and tries to rip my guts out. Thinking about him feels like it’s succeeding. Loving you is easy. It’s warm and soft and content. It’s like a perfect summer day or a spring rain.” He stopped, staring at her for a long moment. She did not speak, simply met his gaze head on and waited. He shook his head, trying to wrangle the words into some sense and knowing that no matter which language he picked, he would fall short. “Loving Alfred is a lightening storm. It’s being trapped at sea in a gale and not knowing if you’ll be able to ride out the fury or if Njord will drag you to the depths. It’s fire and pain and a soul-crushing darkness that tastes like guilt, but feels like rage. I don’t know what to do with it, except maybe drown.”</p><p>Gisela smiled, wide and proud. “You speak beautifully about it, Uhtred.” She sobered a little, though the smile had not disappeared. “Loving me is safe. I am here and I love you. No one forbids you from loving me. There is no distance between us. That is why it is easy.” </p><p>Uhtred nodded, but said nothing. </p><p>She continued, “The exact opposite is true with Alfred. He is married. He is the King of Wessex and Mercia. And most importantly he is a Christian. There are walls and moats and valleys and mountains between you. It is enough to rend any man’s soul. But Uhtred, my love, you must accept it or you will tear yourself apart. You spent the whole winter wrapped in icy hatred. You cannot let that happen again. If you stop fighting it, perhaps the gale with calm a little.” </p><p>Uhtred looked away, staring off into the shadowed corners of the room. He had fought against this feeling for so many years already. He had attempted to yank it out by its roots too many times and never succeeded. He’d come close when Alfred had made him a penitent and made him crawl through the filth in the streets, but though it twisted and shriveled, this violent love had not been stamped out. He’d been closer still when Alfred had ordered him to fight Leofric to the death. Then, it had shrunk to barely a ghost in his veins, a memory of a feeling more than the feeling itself. But then they’d retreated to the Somerset Marshes and it had roared back to life, flooding him with fire and it sunk its roots deep into him then. He’d spent months living in close quarters with Alfred then, spoken to him and been spoken to as an equal. He’d gotten a taste of what it had felt like to be trusted by him, to spent hours together talking or walking in the marshes or doing a hundred other things Uhtred had never dreamed. All the while, the love had clawed deeper into his soul, leaving bloody scars behind, but digging so deep into him, he knew that he’d never be able to get it out again. </p><p>So instead, he’d boxed it up, and all his memories of the marshes, and pushed them all to the very back of his mind. He’d promised himself he’d never think of any of it again. He’d ignore his heart and he’d ignore the lust that surged in his blood whenever Alfred smirked at him or brushed too close by him. He had succeeded, for the most part. Stepping into Alfred’s bedchamber that first time, being suddenly enveloped with Alfred’s willow bark and hyssop scent, had knocked the breath from him. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he might have laughed himself sick from the sheer frustration of it.</p><p>He shook his head. What Gisela wanted, what she was asking him to do, was not so simple as she made it seem.</p><p>“Uhtred, you are not a Christian, so stop acting like one. Loving Alfred is no bad thing and you don’t believe in sin anyway. If I do not mind it, if I encourage it even, than there is no one to tell you that you cannot love him.”</p><p>“You say that, but you don’t understand.” He shook his head again and finally dragged his gaze back to her. Something in his eyes gave her pause. “Gisela, I have…it’s been years. Years of ignoring this, of pretending it didn’t exist. I’ve…” He swallowed. “I’ve loved Alfred since nearly the moment I met him. It was barely a thought, then, a seed of something that I tried to stamp out. But I never could and it’s years too late for that. It’s hard to relearn the habit of a lifetime. I am trying. But…I am exposed. Raw and every new person or sly remark or hushed whisper about how I warm the King’s bed scraps against something inside me that is telling me to keep it hidden. I can’t…”</p><p>Her smile gentled into a tenderness so soft that it nearly stole Uhtred’s breath and she reached for him. “It is hard! You’ve been alone in this for so long, hiding in the darkness. But I’ll help you step into the daylight. And once you take Eoferwic, Alfred will come north and it will all feel much more real. With him standing before you, telling you he loves you, kissing you, it will all feel less like a beautiful dream.”</p><p>Uhtred huffed, some of the tension leaving his body. He pulled her down to him again and she tumbled to sprawl over his chest. He grinned at her. “Alfred will come and we will discover what we three shall be then. But until then, there are much more immediate things to think about.” </p><p>She rolled her eyes at him, but met his upraising mouth with a searing kiss. Thoughts of Alfred, for both of them, would keep a little longer. They had one last hurdle before they could move forward and each other to seek comfort in in the meantime. Uhtred pushed away all thought of anything outside of his room and loved his wife instead. It was likely, he thought, one of the last moments of true privacy they’d be able to manage before the march to Eoferwic. He was right.</p><p>In the morning, Uhtred found Finan in the courtyard, surrounded by a milling crowd of men. Some were the warriors that he’d taken with him, but a good two score more were dressed as peasants, farmers, smiths, and the like. There even appeared to be a woman among them, her hair black as jet and her skin a deep shade of brown that Uhtred had never seen, like rich fertile earth after a rain. She was wearing breeches and there was an ax on her back. Uhtred caught her eye and tilted his head, curiosity no doubt visible in his eyes. The woman gave him a vicious smile and a slight bow in return. </p><p>When Uhtred’s gaze finally skimmed back to Finan, the Irishman was grinning. He jerked his head and Uhtred crossed the space to join him. “Lord, I’ve brought you nearly half a hundred more warriors to fight with you.”</p><p>Uhtred snorted, grinning back at him. “I see that. Who’s the woman?”</p><p>“My name is Mehrasa, Lord. I’ve come to swear an oath to you.” Her English was accented, but as Uhtred’s was. Her voice was lyrical and deep. She’d clearly followed him through the crowd to present herself before a description of her could be given. </p><p>Finan’s smile softened a little. Uhtred wondered at that, but said nothing. Instead, he examined Mehrasa. She was tall for a woman, taller than he was, though not by much, and heavily muscled. The shirt she wore had had the sleeves cut off, showing the scarred flesh of her arms. There was s lave mark like Uhtred’s own, cut into her right bicep, and a series of hashmarks on her left. Over a dozen of them and Uhtred wondered what they signified. There was a challenge in her eyes, defiant and angry. Her shoulders were strung tense as a bowstring and her face was hard, as though she was expecting ridicule.</p><p>He simply nodded and said, “Well, Mehrasa, if your ax is as fierce as your smile, I’m sure you are worth half a dozen men.”</p><p>If Finan was willing to vouch for her, if he thought she could be trusted, then Uhtred didn’t need to know anymore. She blinked at him, before her smile eased and her face softened. “You were right.” she said to Finan. “I should not have doubted you.”</p><p>Finan chortled, but didn’t respond and she melted back into the crowd. “</p><p>“Interesting collection you’ve brought me.” </p><p>“Indeed, Lord. They’ll fight hard for you though.” Finan looked around them, satisfaction in every movement. “This is their home and you are their Lord.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded again, but sighed. “If all goes to plan, they won’t have to fight for me at all. Although, I have every intention of sending men against the Scots sometime soon. After Eoferwic.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re going to have to get them outfitted today. We’re marching tomorrow. We were just waiting on you.” <br/>The hall was ablaze with light, windows un-shuttered and candles burning in dim rooms. There was even a candle burning near the open window in the library. Uhtred could practically see Gisela and her ladies gathered around the big table, finishing off the wolf-head banner that would flew above their marching army and eventually grace the ramparts of Eoferwic.</p><p>Now that he was paying attention, Uhtred could actually see the preparations for their departure going on all around them. The blacksmith’s forge was blazing and there were no less than five men sharing it, making as many blades and axes as they could. Another smith sat outside, checking hooves as men brought their horses by him. The baker’s ovens were roaring too, a slim girl in a drab grey dress gathering the loaves and packing them in baskets. Another girl, probably the first’s sister for they looked alike, was packing yet more baskets with salted meats. Not a single person Uhtred could see was idle, except he himself. Even the new comers were being rounded up by Brida and pointed off to get clothes or weapons or food.</p><p>When he saw him looking, Brida stuck out her tongue for a beat before grinning and turning away. Uhtred huffed a breath, nearly a laugh, and shook his head. He wasn’t sure they’d be ready by tomorrow, but the day after wouldn’t be that much delay. And if they were delayed, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. Thankfully, Eoferwic was not nearly as far from Bebbenburg as Dunholm was, so they would need fewer supplies. He took a breath, realizing just how much had happened since Finan left. The thought of filling his friend in on it all made his bones ache and his limbs grow heavy. </p><p>Finan’s eyes had gone wide while Uhtred was distracted. “Tomorrow?” He prompted, voice thin with confusion.</p><p>“Tomorrow, if we can. The day after certainly. Find Sihtric or Osferth. They’ll fill you in.” Finan nodded, looking dazed. Uhtred clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve done well, my friend. You have my thanks.”</p><p>He left Finan there, blinking after him.</p><p>The lighted window upstairs in the hall could only be one person, since basically everyone else ignored the library entirely: Aethelflaed. Guilt twisted his guts, but he pushed the feeling aside. It had been too long that he’d left his guilt keep him from his duty.</p><p>The library, a room on the second story of the hall on the opposite end from the Lord’s chambers, was much like Alfred’s with its high windows and racks of scrolls and skin-bound tombs. Uhtred had avoided it whenever possible as a boy and had no great desire to spend time there as a man either. But it was private enough for them to have a conversation and it was where Aethelflaed spent much of her free time. </p><p>She looked up when he came in, her face blank, but a smile twitched her lips when he locked the door behind him. She looked older than her years, older than she had when he’d had Gisela dress her as a boy at Coccham. There were deep purple circles under her eyes and her chestnut hair had lost its shine. The guilt twisted tighter.</p><p>“My lady.” He said, keeping his voice low. </p><p>She waved him into the seat opposite her at the table. “Uhtred. I’d prefer you call me by my name. I hear it so seldom now. But what brings you to visit your wayward bastard?”</p><p>He snorted, but shook his head. “A conversation we should have had months ago, Aethelflaed.” He took a breath and reached up to touch the hammer at his throat. “If everything goes as planned, you should be able to reveal your identity in the next few weeks. If you and Erik wish it, Beocca and I can marry you then.”</p><p>A relieved smile brightened her eyes and a weight seemed to lift from her. “I am very glad to hear it.”</p><p>“There are two thing we need to discuss in the meantime.” She nodded, so he pressed on. “You and Erik will both remain here when the army marches.” She opened her mouth, outrage on her face, but he held up a hand and she subsided again. Something in the shape of her face or in the scowl that knotted her brow reminded him of Alfred. He swallowed. “Someone needs to remain behind to hold Bebbenburg, if we fail to take Eoferwic. If it comes to battle, we will likely all die. I need you both here. The minute we are gone, you may reveal who you are. Men will listen to you because you are Alfred’s daughter. I will be leaving most of your father’s men here to guard the walls. They especially will listen to you. Can you do that for me?”</p><p>She nodded again, but worry clouded her eyes. “If you will lose, why are you marching?”</p><p>He grinned then, the guilt subsiding a little. “Because we won’t be fighting. Well, not the army anyway. I have a plan. Ask Erik about it. I am certain he was appalled by it.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes looking calmer. “Well, if it is appalling and it is your idea, it will surely succeed, since that seems to be your specialty. I’ve heard the stories about Dunholm and you know my favorite of yours was Cynuit Hill.”</p><p>His grin softened to a proper smile. “I remember. This is going to be very much like Cynuit Hill, I hope. But, regardless of what happens there, Erik and the men I’m leaving here can hold the fortress. I’m leaving my children here too, but Gisela will ride with us. So if we die, I ask that you raise my children and hold Bebbenburg for them.” She agreed easily, smiling through her renewed anxiety. “But, with the luck of the gods, we will succeed and take Eoferwic. In which case, I will become King of Northumbria and I will be moving the court here. I have no intention of spending any more time than necessary in Eoferwic.”</p><p>She huffed a breath through her nose. “Understandable.”</p><p>He tilted his head. “What I do intend to do is burn Guhtred’s hall to ashes. I’ll build housing in its place and leave one of my men in charge of the city, to garrison it and keep things peaceable. Ludda perhaps. He’s clever enough.”</p><p>Aethelflaed frowned thoughtfully. “Will the witan be willing to travel so far north? Some of the Northumbrian lords live on the Mercian border. Quite a distance away.”</p><p>“There won’t be a witan to worry about.”</p><p>She looked shocked. “How can—“</p><p>Uhtred shook his head. “It was not the way here when my ancestors were Kings in Bernicia and it has not been the way of the Danes either. I see no reason to reform it now. What I will do is form a council to advise me and to overrule any particularly harebrained schemes. Many of the wealthiest or most influential lords will be appointed to it. Ragnar, Gisela, Beocca, Hild, and one of my men will be present if possible too. Would you be willing to sit on the new council as well?”</p><p>Her eyes went wide and flooded with tears. Uhtred blinked at her, not certain quite what to do. She leapt from her seat and threw her arms around his neck. “Yes! Oh yes, of course!” He wrapped his arm around her for an awkward, though tight sideway hug, before she retreated to her seat, grinning sheepishly. “I was content to set out of political life and to be Erik’s wife, but…I feared that that life would eventually feel…small.”</p><p>“The life of a peasant would be a waste of you. You, my lady Aethelflaed, are a princess and you were born to be part of the great events of this island. I’d be a fool not to make use of you.”</p><p>“How very kingly of you, Uhtred.”  She teased, warmth in both her voice and gaze, but she sobered quickly. “May I ask a question?” He nodded, just a quick jerk of his chin, and settled back in his seat, curious. "What will you do with the current King of Northumbria? You have to take the throne from him, but isn’t he your wife’s brother?”</p><p>Uhtred sighed, his gaze sliding from her to skim the room, finally resting on the flickering candle on the opposite end of the table. “I don’t know. I should kill him. I used to want to kill him. What he did to me…What he did to Halig…But you’re right. He’s Gisela’s brother.” He shook his head, forcing himself to meet her eyes again. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”</p><p>Aethelflaed chewed her lip, meeting his gaze and not saying anything for a long moment. “Well, as my first act as royal advisor, I have an idea.”</p><p>He swept his hand wide in an expansive gesture. “By all means.”</p><p>“Send him to Father.”</p><p>Uhtred blinked. Once, twice, then again. “What?”</p><p>Aethelflaed nodded decisively, leaning in. “Send him to Father, with a note. Father can put him in the monastery in Winchester. He can take holy orders. They do it with the wives of dead kings or widows, send them to nunneries. Why not with deposed kings too? He can’t stay in the north, obviously.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded, slow and thoughtful. “Too much risk of his being used for rebellion. But that…is a very neat solution. It removes him without my having to kill him. I’d much rather he’d be Alfred’s problem than mine. And your father has given me his problems to handle for more years than I want to count. It’s about time to return the favor.” He nodded again, his face breaking into a grin. “It is excellent advice. See? I told you you’d be wasted as a peasant.”</p><p>She laughed, clear and sweet, looking like the girl she’d been in Wessex for a moment. The guilt flared in his gut again, but along side it, fresh determination. He just needed to fight one more battle, work one more miracle, and then she could be free to live as she liked. They all would.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Winchester, The Road to Wales</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next few weeks felt to Alfred like being underwater. He was weightless, floating, suspended without any idea how to move forward. He spent it waiting. For news, for some sign from God that his prayers had been answered or that they had not, for a messenger or a rider, for <i>something</i>, but everyday he woke to the same nothing as the day before. </p>
<p>He awaited news of Wales. He awaited news of Eoferwic. He awaited news of Bebbenburg. He waited. He waited, he waited. </p>
<p>At least, small consolation though it was, Aelswith waited at his side. Aethelflaed had torn them apart, though she did so unknowingly, and now she’d brought them back together. They had slipped back into an approximation of their previous relationship, sharing meals and confidences, though she was skittish about discussing anything that might lead back to Uhtred and categorically refused to enter his bedchambers. Nor did he press her to. He was quite certain, without having to hear her say it, that they would never lay together again. They were friends, but no longer husband and wife. They had done their duty to the crown. She had given him an heir and so he left the marriage die without a word spoken to preserve it. </p>
<p>The thought did not pain him. Alfred would have no wife but Aleswith, but found no lack in the absence of their physical intimacy. A friend, especially one who knew him so well as she did, was something infinity more precious to a king.</p>
<p>The idea made Alfred think of his own parents. They had not loved one another, nor were they friends. In truth, Alfred though, looking back on it, they had seemed to barely tolerate one another. It had been a political match from beginning to end. His mother had been a cold woman and his father a strict man, not the best of combinations, but effective. She had retired to a nunnery, as soon as it was clear that Alfred and his siblings would grow into adulthood. He’d visited her there only twice: upon his betrothal and upon his coronation. She had received him as a stranger both times and so he’d put the thought of her aside. He could not now say whether she lived or not, nor did he care to know. </p>
<p>Alfred hadn’t thought of either parent in years. His childhood felt like a dream, distant and misty, half suspect. The waiting gave him strange fancies and worse moods, which was no doubt why he was thinking of them now. </p>
<p>And so he was both relieved and twisted into knots when, seventeen days after he sat in his library with Aelswith, he awoke to a messenger from the West.</p>
<p>The man was mud-splattered and weary, stumbling his way up the palace steps when Alfred finally hurried out to meet him. “My Lord King! You have a victory at Dinefwr!”</p>
<p>“Praise God for the news! Come,” Alfred said, gesturing to a guard to assist the man. “Come inside, where there is warmth and food and ale.”</p>
<p>The man, with the guard’s help, followed him to the library. Aelswith was already there, waiting with a tray and a roaring fire in the grate. Alfred smiled his thanks and situated the messenger at the table. “Lord King, Steapa sent me from the castle.” He mumbled, eying the food with ravenous interest.</p>
<p>Alfred smiled at him. “Ate first. You can give us your news after you’re satisfied.”</p>
<p>With a relieved grin, the messenger fell on the food as though he hadn’t eaten in days. Which, Alfred thought, was likely true. Dinefwr was at least four days ride from here and the man appeared to have lost his horse at some point. Who knows how long it had taken?</p>
<p>‘Longer than it would have taken for a rider to come from Bebbenburg?’ a small voice whispered in the back of Alfred’s mind. ‘Long enough to that Uhtred is dead?’ But he pushed the traitorous whisper away. He couldn’t afford the distraction. He didn’t have time or space to fall apart again.</p>
<p>Luckily, the messenger pushed away the plate and sat back just then, dragging Alfred from his morbid thoughts. “Lord,” the man said. “My name is Fedde. I rode with Steapa and you against the Danes at Beamfleot, lord, and he sent me to tell you of the victory over the Welsh.”</p>
<p>Alfred nodded, but Aelswith stepped to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Fedde,” She said. “That is not a Saxon name.”</p>
<p>“No, Lady.” The man shook his head, his  pale eyes eager though his long face was solemn. “I was born in Frisia, but I was captured by the Danes when I was a child. I was sold in Lunden, Lady, to an Irishman named Finan. He taught me how to fight and had me carry messages back to his Lord when he was out on patrol, but then he freed me. I came to Winchester to fight for the King.”</p>
<p>Alfred glanced up at Aelswith at the mention of Uhtred’s right hand. Her smile had gone tight, but her expression was as gracious as ever. Fedde at least didn’t seem to notice anything off. Alfred wondered if this would happen every time someone mentioned anything obliquely related to Uhtred in her presence. He thought it probably would. He bit back a sigh.</p>
<p>“Well, next time Finan comes to Winchester, we shall offer our thanks, since you are obviously dedicated to your new role.” Alfred said, trying to draw the topic back on course.</p>
<p>Fedde’s eyes went wide and he smiled uncertainly. It pulled at a fresh scar that twisted up the left side of his face, passed his eye and disappearing into his hairline. He bobbed his head in a nervous approximation of a nod, or perhaps a bow, Alfred wasn’t sure. “Yes, Lord. I appreciate that, Lord.”</p>
<p>“Now, tell me of the battle. Did Steapa send any other message?”</p>
<p>He bobbed his head again. A nod then. “He told me to tell you that King Hywel’s brother, Rhodri, is been captured, Lord, and Steapa’s got him locked in the dungeons at Dinefwr. He asked if you could come and pass judgment on him or if he should bring Rhodri back here.”</p>
<p>Alfred shook his head, a frown forming on his face. Neither prospect was ideal. He’d be riding through hostile territory for several days, without Steapa by his side. Or Uhtred, his mind supplied with a sharp throb of pain. But on the other hand, parading the dead King’s brother in chains through Wales seemed an even more dangerous tactic. The tribes of Wales were ever unpredictable, but always proud.</p>
<p>Aelswith squeezed his shoulder. “You must to Wales, Lord King.”</p>
<p>He sighed and glanced at Fedde, who was watching them with wide eyes. “I must to Wales, my dear.” He agreed. “Will you see to preparations? We should leave as soon as we are able.”</p>
<p>She nodded, smiling down at him, her face calmer now. “I will take care of the packing and the supplies and speak to Lord Odda about the guard. You must travel safely, husband, and I will pray for you every day, but I will remain here. Edward will need someone to guide him through any decisions that will need to be made.”</p>
<p>Alfred smiled, warm and relieved. “Very wise, as always, my dear. I will speak to Odda myself. When you see Edward, send him here.” She took it for the dismissal it was and left with a nod. Alfred turned back to Fedde, who dropped his gaze immediately. “Tell me, Fedde, how was Finan as a master?”</p>
<p>Fedde blinked, eyes still wide, and his lips parted on a surprised exhaled. “Oh…um. He was always kind to me, Lord. Tough and exacting, but kind. He taught me to speak English.”</p>
<p>Alfred could picture it easily. And who better to teach a Frisian the Saxon tongue than a man who had had to learn it himself? Finan, Alfred knew, had grown up speaking the Irish tongue, Gaelic, and had come to learn English as an adult. “And you lived at Coccham?”</p>
<p>The man nodded readily enough, but there was a spark of something in his eyes. Alfred was abruptly reminded of the rumors. “I did, Lord. A good town. The people are kind and welcoming. They accept all sorts in Coccham. Danes, Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Welshmen, Bretons, Christian and pagan alike. There were even a couple of Northmen there and no one batted an eye, Lord. Lord Uhtred is a good man and a good Lord. He takes proper care of his people.”</p>
<p>Alfred couldn’t quite stifle the small smile that curled at the corners of his lips, though it made Fedde grin in response.  </p>
<p>He was right. Uhtred was a good man and yet Alfred had been blind to it for so long, purposefully and callously blind. He’d allowed the whispers of his clergy to cloud his own judgement. The priests, like Brother Asser and Bishop Erkenwald, hissed poison into his ears because Uhtred was a heathen, because he’d killed that abbot in Northumbria, because he was unapologetic about who he was and did not suffer fools, because they each had a personal reason to hate the Dane that had nothing to do with God. </p>
<p>Brother Asser assured him that Uhtred was of the devil, a liar and a deceiver, sent by Satan to tempt them all into grievous sin. Alfred often wondered how Uhtred was tempting Asser and into what particular sin, but that was never an image he had ever wanted to dwell on, so he would just as often dismiss the entire question. </p>
<p>Bishop Erkenwald at least admitted that Uhtred was useful, clever in a fight and the best warrior the Bishop had ever seen. But he urged Alfred to view him as a tool, a weapon to be wielded against Wessex’s enemies and nothing more. For years, Alfred had complied. </p>
<p>For years, he’d treated Uhtred as less than he deserved, but through it all, there had been a growing unease in his heart. The still, small voice in his soul that assured him of God’s providence also assured him of Uhtred’s goodness, of his steadfast loyalty, of his open heart and moral rectitude. Alfred had spent too long ignoring that voice. And it had led him here: the entirety of England between them, and Alfred having no idea if Uhtred lived or died. He vowed to himself to close his ears to the voices of men and listen only to the one inside his soul, at least where Uhtred was involved.</p>
<p>He blinked, laying the thought aside, and brought his attention back to Fedde, who had fallen silent, watching him. “Well, it is always good to hear that my ealdormen are proving themselves to be worthy of the name. Though both Finan and Lord Uhtred have ridden north and will likely not return.” Fedde’s expression folded into a frown, but Alfred simply kept on, not allowing the man to ask the question forming in his eyes. “Now, why don’t you go find your bed for some much deserved rest. Ask the guard for whatever you might need and it shall be given you. You will accompany me back to Steapa when I ride out.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Lord.” Fedde nodded and stood, bowing so deep Alfred wondered if he was trying to touch his nose to the tabletop. Alfred stood as well and ushered the young messenger out into the hallway. He instructed one of the guards to find him lodging, before sending another for Lord Odda. There was much to do and very little time to do it in. </p>
<p>………………………………</p>
<p>Alfred had been excused from most of the rigorous preparations for the trip north, given that he was shut up in the library with an ever rotating series of advisors and relatives, beginning with his son and ending with the temporary head of the palace guard. He spent the three days leading up to their departure giving orders and delegating tasks. Aelswith and Edward both had been given detailed instructions for a variety of scenarios, including what to do if word came from Northumbria or Bebbenburg.</p>
<p>He had done all he could to ready them for his absence, but it was not without worry that he departed with his unnecessarily robust retinue. The cloud of frustration and concern on his face must have been very dark indeed, because he rode most of the first day in relative solitude, noticing little and speaking less. The roads were thick with mud, though the rain held off, leaving the party with a watery kind of sunlight as witness to their departure and giving Alfred the excuse of needing to pay close attention to his mount to prevent her from throwing a shoe, though no one pressed for an explanation for his quiet.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until the sun was beginning to sink in the sky that Alfred was pulled from his brooding, by the presence of a horse pulling up along side him. He glanced over to identify the rider and blinked in surprise. </p>
<p>Leofgifu, her eyes shadowed by her hood, sat easy in her saddle and met his shocked eyes with a gentle stare of her own. A crucifix hanging at her throat glinted in the dying light. She bowed briefly, just a slight curve of her shoulders, and murmured, “Lord King.”</p>
<p>He wondered for a moment who her people had been back in Irland. Neither her nor her aunt had moved like peasants. Even now, a nun and former slave in a strange land, Leofgifu carried herself with dignity and grace. They had both lacked an inherent deference that peasants could never seem to disguise. The same deference that Uhtred himself lacked, the same deference that had told Alfred that he was telling the truth about his origin. In Uhtred, it could be excused to a point, for his ancestors had been Kings in the north. In Iseult, it was expected for she was a shadow Queen. But in Leofgifu? A nun from a tiny convent in a small village on the Temes?</p>
<p>For the first time since he’d discovered her origin, Alfred realized that there wasn’t such a vast difference between her and her aunt, even if one was a nun and the other a pagan witch. And, he thought helplessly, if the magic was the same, who could say whether it did not come from God in both cases? Perhaps, God had worked through Iseult then, as Uhtred said He did, just as He did now through Leofgifu. Could the gift of healing really be from the devil if it appeared in a holy sister? </p>
<p>He brushed the thoughts aside, resolving to press her on both questions later, and smiled.</p>
<p>“Sister. I had not realized you planned to join us.”</p>
<p>She matched his smile, pushing back her hood and turning her face to the fading sun. “You must have your tonics, Lord, and so I must come to Wales. But more than that, I have always wished to see more that Britain had to offer.”</p>
<p>Alfred huffed a breath, shaking his head. “I doubt a short trek through war-ravaged Mercia and the wilds of Wales will do much to further that goal, but you will be seeing more of the island at least.”</p>
<p>She inclined her head in acknowledgement, though clearly not agreement and her eyes danced. They rode in companionable silence for several minutes before Leofgifu said, her voice soft. “Lord, you are weighed down with worry, much as you were in the chapel that day. It has not left you. You have merely learned to hide it.” He turned to meet her eyes, but said nothing. “You will see him again.”</p>
<p>Alfred’s heart clenched and his breath caught in his throat. “You’ve spoken before about his future. Do you know this for certain?”</p>
<p>The nun looked out over the road before them, avoiding his eye for a moment. Her face went pale, but after a beat, she nodded. “I have seen it. The Lord gives me visions, just as he did my aunt. They are never wrong, Lord.” She turned back to him, her eyes wide and luminous. “The whispers that you so long to be true will be. The love that buds between you, the love that torments you both, with blossom and grow.”</p>
<p>He blinked at her before his eyes went wide and his expression stony, though he could feel his face flush hot with embarrassment. He remembered writing some similar thing in his last letter to Uhtred, but to hear his forbidden wish spoken aloud felt like a fist to the chest. His lungs tightened and his breath was thin, nearly wheezing. His mouth had gone dry. </p>
<p>She shook her head, dropping her gaze again as her unmarred cheek flushed a delicate pink. “Do not ask what I have seen or what is to come, for I will not say. But know that God will grant your desire, though not your prayer. Uhtred Ragnarsson of Bebbenburg lives still.”</p>
<p>A searing flare of shame flushed through him at the implications of her blush, but it was soon chased away by relief. Iseult’s visions, the ones that Uhtred had told him of, had all come true before she’d lost her gift on Uhtred’s cock—he resolutely refused to feel any jealousy at that thought—and if Leofgifu had the same gift, than…His jointed felt watery and he tightened his knees against his horses flanks, worried for a moment that his inattention and bonelessness would unseat him.</p>
<p>He could think of no response to her reassurance nor to her promise. Instead, he simply stared at her. She smiled back. “Lord, have I ever told you of the day I first met Lord Uhtred?”</p>
<p>He managed to shake his head at this, though he still hadn’t found his tongue. He caused himself silently for this weakness, for the ease with which her distraction was succeeding. </p>
<p>“I was hardly eleven, when the Danes came to the coast of Irland, where my father was a Warrior Chief. My aunt’s marriage to the King in Cornwallum, and the enormity of the bride price that that King had paid her father for her, had cemented our family’s power at home. When my uncle died, my father stepped forward as chief. But that year, the crops had been poor and so the soldiers were less vigilante about their patrols, being always hungry. When the Danes came, no one noticed until it was much too late. They killed my father and my brothers. They Killed my grandmother and all the men who guarded our family, and they took my mother and me as slaves.” She paused to reach up and brush a wayward tendril of hair out of her eyes. “I had the gift of sight, even then, and the Danes knew better than to hump me, so I was taken to Daneland and given to the Kings, Sigefrid and Halfdan. I served in their court for a year or two, before I was taken by a rival of theirs and brought back west, to Britain this time. They were bringing me to Lunden to be sold as a whore or killed as a witch, for the Bishop at the time bought pagan women from the slavers to execute them before the people, when Lord Uhtred and his men stopped their ship.”</p>
<p>Alfred frowned at this, his heart finally settling back to normal in his chest. “Why stop a trading ship, even a Danish one?”</p>
<p>“I am sure you know that he does not suffer slavers easily and he knew the man who was my master then, knew what he was. He told me later that the man had been a friend of Sverri, his own master when he’d been enslaved.”</p>
<p>“I know who Sverri was.” Alfred said, jaw tight with the same spark of rage that bubbled up anytime Uhtred’s enslavement was brought to his attention.</p>
<p>Leofgifu nodded, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I thought you might. They re both long dead, Lord, and the world is better for it. When my master saw that it was Uhtred of Bebbenburg who stopped him, he had his men attack and he came to slit our throats, mine and the three girls who were with me.  Two of them, Abondancia and Acorsa, Italians who had flowered at the Danish court with me, had been my friends for years, but the third girl, a dark beauty named Vanushe, had been taken with her sister from some southern coast. The two had been separated at the Slaver’s Beach in Northumbria, where my master had taken one but not the other. There was male slave too that he’d brought on board with Vanushe. He’d been put at the oars and I watched him slip overboard when the fighting started. All I ever learned of him was that he’d been a pleasure slave of first Ubba Lothbrok and then Ivarr Ubbasson, since he was a small boy and that he dreamed of power and revenge.”</p>
<p>Her words sparked something in his memory, some small niggling idea that had been forming, ignored, in the back of his mind. “What did this slave look like?”</p>
<p>Leofgifu paused, frowning for a moment. “I…it was years ago now, Lord, and I only knew him for a few weeks, but I remember he had an angular face, sharp boned, and a full mouth that reminded me later of Lord Uhtred’s. Dark hair and eyes. He was, I think, barely twenty when I knew him, but he was tall and held himself with practiced dignity. I remember being surprised that a pleasure slave would still retain so much dignity and so much rage.”</p>
<p>It couldn’t possibly be as Alfred was thinking. There must be hundreds of men who angular faces and dark hair. This escaped slave could not be Ealdorman Coenred. It was simply a coincidence, he thought. Though hadn’t Alfred himself noted that Coenred’s heavy pout was reminiscent of Uhtred’s? </p>
<p>The very though made an ache unfurl behind Alfred’s eyes. It could not be the same man. Certainly, God worked in mysterious ways, but this would stress credulity. </p>
<p>Leofgifu must have sensed his distraction because she lapsed into silence without telling him the rest of her story. </p>
<p>He exhaled, trying to force the thought away, but it lingered like a barb, sharp and irritating. He wished Uhtred rode with them or Beocca or even Pyrlig, so that he could ask their thoughts on it without feeling like a fool. He wished himself in Bebbenburg, far from here and from the weight of his responsibilities, which seemed to grow by the day, far from the ever more tangled web of Coenred and the faith-testing doubts that Leofgifu brought with her.</p>
<p>He could imagine it easily, being in Bebbenburg, though he’d never been. Uhtred had spoken of it enough for Alfred to feel as though he could walk its corridors blindfolded. He’d often wondered at the curious mixture of pride and loathing and desperation that soaked deep into Uhtred’s voice and coated every word he uttered of it.</p>
<p>The waves would beat against the cliffs below, Alfred knew and could see in his mind’s eye, tinting the air with salt, and the sea would stretch out around them like rippled glass sparkling in the sunlight. The small town within the ramparts would bustle with life, with trade, with the sounds and smells of living. At the center of it all, Uhtred would stand on the steps of the hall and survey his home. He’d be grinning, a dimple pressed into each cheek and his astonishingly white teeth gleaming against his tanned face. </p>
<p>The vision was so strong that Alfred closed his eyes against it, but it did not good.</p>
<p>He imagined himself climbing those steps and Uhtred reaching for him, laying a hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. He’d greet him with warmth, love shining in his eyes. </p>
<p>He exhaled, slow and agonized, and pushed the daydream away as hard as he could manage. It finally vanished as though it had never been, leaving only a sharp pain in his throat and an ache in his belly to say it had existed at all. He opened his eyes.</p>
<p>He’d likely never see Bebbenburg. He could not be certain that he’d ever see Uhtred either. Despite Leofgifu’s reassurance, the small seed of doubt in Alfred’s soul would not be snuffed out. </p>
<p>He swallowed against the pain, his throat bobbing, and shook himself. “I apologize for my distraction, Sister.” He said, forcing himself back into the present. “Please do not think it indicates a lack of interest.”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “Of course not, Lord King. You have many worries. When you wish to hear the rest, simply send for me and I will be happy to tell it.”</p>
<p>He nodded, grateful, and she slowed the pace of her horse, dropping back and away to ride with the other women at the end of the column. In the gathering gloom, Alfred waved over the guard and gave the order to set camp at the next appropriate site. There was still too long to travel to risk the horses to the darkness and Alfred was already weary of it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Bebbenburg/The Road to Eoferwic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My chapters are ending up about twice the length they used to be. I don't think you guys mind, but apologies all the same. I usually try to make chapters similar in length.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The courtyard was absolute chaos: men and horses and carts and women and supplies and hounds and children. None of whom seemed worried about where any of the rest were going. The warriors at least were filing out of the fort, nearly three quarters of them were already in the fields beyond the outer walls, sharpening weapons and polishing mail. </p><p>Brida, on his left, was watching the insanity with glee. Ragnar on the other hand, to his right, was frowning. “I don’t think we’ve brought enough shields.”</p><p>Uhtred shook his head. “It won’t matter one way or the other. If we fight, we’ll die anyway. So, pray that my plan works.”</p><p>Ragnar reached up to touch the hammer at his throat. Brida snorted. “The trench has been dug outside the Eastern Gate and Smoca is waiting. Your Irishman’s got her.”</p><p>Uhtred clenched his jaw, but nodded. He’d promised Gisela and he was sure that they needed all the help they could get. He’d never had a war horse as well trained or as good as Smoca. He was going to hate killing her. “Good. Once everyone’s out, we’ll make the sacrifice and then we can march.” He glanced up, gauging. “By the look of things, we should be ready before midday.”</p><p>“Which means, in a few days time, if all goes well, you will have the crown of Northumbria resting on your greasy head.” Brida said, grinning widely enough to show her teeth.</p><p>Uhtred huffed, frowning to hide his smile. “Just because I was born Saxon doesn’t mean I bath like one! My head is perfectly clean, thank you.”</p><p>“Clean as a weasel’s backside, maybe.”</p><p>Uhtred opened his both to answer this outrageous accusation, but Ragnar shook his head. “Stop it, both of you. There is too much to do to act like children.”</p><p>Uhtred sighed and nodded. “I’ll saddle Lightening and meet you out at the Eastern Gate. Pray that Odin is amused by our plans or we are all likely doomed.”</p><p>Ragnar exhaled, a heavy sound, but clapped Uhtred on the shoulder and retreated back into the hall. Brida shook her head and disappeared into the crowd without a word to him. He watched her go, a flicker of worry surfacing at her continued hostility, playful though it sometimes was.</p><p>He sighed again and shook the thought away. There was too much else to do in the meantime to worry about Brida. She would eventually sort herself out or her rage would bubble over and they would address it. Until than, he vowed to ignore it.</p><p>His prediction came true much sooner than he’d suspected and his vow to ignore her rage barely lasted two days. They were barely an hour out from Eoferwic, when she finally boiled over. </p><p>The three of them were riding at the head of the column, making their slow approach, when Ragnar caught sight of Guthred’s banners flying over the city. He frowned. “Today may be the day you get your revenge on Guthred. What will you do with him? Kill him?”</p><p>Uhtred shook his head. “I won’t. He’s my wife’s brother, whatever else he’s done. I won’t be the one who kills him. I’ll send him south to a monastery. Let everyone forget about him as he rots among the priests.”</p><p>Brida scoffed. “You won’t kill him? More like you can’t kill him. You’ve grown weak. Living with Saxons so long has stolen your battle lust from you, Uhtred, and filled you with fear.” She turned and spat into the ditch that ran along side the road. “You should slit him from cock to gullet and put his head on a pike. Let everyone see what happens to the enemies of Uhtred the Wicked.” She laughed at his startled look. “Yes, we hear even this far north what the Saxons call you. They hate you. They fear you because you’re a pagan and yet you forever grovel at the feet of the worst of them.” </p><p>Uhtred’s spine slowly tensed as Brida spoke, his muscles rigid enough to make Lightening dance a little. He patted her neck to calm her and said nothing. </p><p>“Brida…” Ragnar said, his voice warning. He shot a quick glance at Uhtred, worry clear in his eyes.</p><p>She shook head, scowling. “What you should do is kill the Turd King, take his army, and march south on Mercia. It’s disorganized. Alfred is sickly and far away in Wessex. They’d fall like an oak to an ax. </p><p>Uhtred blinked and then stared at her for a moment. His eyes had narrowed slightly, incredulous. “Are you insane, Brida? I’m not attacking Alfred’s kingdom. There would be no sense in it.”</p><p>Ragnar coughed, clearly trying to hide a snort, but Uhtred didn’t even spare him a glance. He was still staring at Brida.</p><p>“Don’t you think you can laugh, Ragnar.” Brida spun to glare at her lover, her jaw flexing with tension. “You’re supposed to be an Earl, a great Danish Warlord. And what do you do? You swear an oath to your little brother, a <i>Saxon</i>. Even before that, you sat in your castle at Dunholm, eating and drinking and whoring, getting fat and content to be. Neither of you are real men. You both lack ambition. You lack vision to see what could be. Together, with Ragnar leading, you could take this whole island!”</p><p>Uhtred snorted. “And what would we do with an island? No, Brida, the one who lacks vision here is you. You never think passed the end of your nose. You accuse us of weakness, but you are shortsighted. You want power and you want tomorrow, but what about next year or the year after? Do you really think attacking Alfred’s kingdom would get us anywhere but at the end of a noose? Wessex is the power on this island. And as long as Alfred lives it will remain that way.”</p><p>Brida shook her head, ignoring his accusations. There was a fire in her eyes now and she was nearly buzzing with energy. “It doesn’t have to be that way! Alfred trusts you. Simply go to him and slit his throat. We can take all of Britain for the Danes and stamp out the sickness of the nailed god.”</p><p>Even the thought of it made Uhtred’s stomach clench and roil with nausea.  The idea of watching the light go out of Alfred’s eyes because of something Uhtred himself had done sent a chill down his spine. His eyes stung. He shook his head, his mouth curling into a snarl. “I would rather hurl myself from the ramparts of Bebbenburg and break upon the rocks below than betray his trust like that. Besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t make it a single step beyond the palace walls. Steapa would take my head before I could take another breath.” He shook his head again. “Christianity is here to stay. There is nothing we can do about it, except learn to live with it.”</p><p>Brida just stared at him for a long moment before her face twisted in disgust. “So the rumors are true then. You let that milksop whoreson hump you and you gave him your <i>heart</i>. I remember meeting the so-called King of Wessex. He was frail, boring, a weakling, blinded by the nailed god so that he could hardly see his nose beyond his face. Somehow he managed to twist you in knots, even then. I could see it on your face, the hunger, but I thought it was a trick of the light.” She snorted in disdain. “Uhtred Ragnarsson, royal bedwarmer and whore. So much for reputation.”</p><p>Uhtred stared at her through hooded eyes as she glowered back. After a moment, he said, “Brida, do not think that simply because we’ve loved one another or because you are my brother’s woman, I will allow your insults and your bile. You say something like that again and I will bury a dagger in your guts.” His voice was steady, calm, and dark with promise.</p><p>Brida twitched, but said nothing more. Instead, she turned her horse and rode back along the column of marchers. Ragnar shook his head as he watched her go, worry on his face. “You shouldn’t speak to her like that. You know how dangerous she is.”</p><p>Uhtred turned to stare at him, face still eerily blank. “And you forget how dangerous I am, Ragnar. I will not let her disparage me or Alfred, not like that. I am sick to death of her constant complaints and accusations. She’s your woman. Explain to her in a way she will understand that her vision of the future of this island is nothing more than an outdated fantasy. It will <i>never</i> come to be. She is living in the past. She dreams like Ubba and Guthrum once did, like the Viking invaders did, of taking Britain, but it is much too late for that.”</p><p>Ragnar shrugged helplessly. “I’ve tried. She accuses me of weakness, but she blinds herself to reality. I have no idea how to get through to her and I fear I am losing her to this madness. It grows by the day.”</p><p>Uhtred sighed. “Well, hopefully this will be over quickly and we can begin to build something she can understand.” </p><p>They fell into an uneasy silence for several minutes before Uhtred asked, voice tight, “You know that this isn’t because of anything that is between Alfred and I? Why I would never march on Mercia?”</p><p>Ragnar chuckled, smiling at little. “You have more sense than to march on Mercia. If Alfred called up the fyrds, he could rally all of Wessex too. Their army would likely be ten or fifteen thousand strong. No matter how poorly most of them were trained, we could never win against that. Not even with the two thousand men of Guthred and Ivarr. You are often foolish, Little Brother, but never a fool.” His smile turned sly, shaking off the last of his worry. “Though, you did turn a little green when she suggested you stab Alfred. I don’t imagine it’s a blade you want to put in him.”</p><p>The joke, vulgar as it was, startled a laugh from Uhtred. He rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Ragnar.”</p><p>Ragnar just laughed, though he fell silent as they topped a ridge and the army of Eoferwic came into view. It looked vast, sprawling out across the plains around the city as it was. Finan rode up on Uhtred’s other side and whistled softly. “I’m glad you have a plan, Lord, because that is a lot more men than we’ve got.”</p><p>Uhtred touched the hammer at his throat. “Let’s hope the plan works and we don’t have to see whether each of us is worth two or three of them.”</p><p>Finan wrapped a hand around his cross and glanced skyward.</p><p>A rider, who had been waiting at the bottom of the ridge, kicked his horse into motion and started up to meet them. Uhtred waited, tracking the man’s approach. Mehrasa and Sihtric rode up on Ragnar’s other side, but stayed silent as they noticed the approaching rider. </p><p>“Lord Uhtred!” The man called, stopping several lengths from them.</p><p>“I am Uhtred. Who are you?”</p><p>“I am Erik, Lord. Ivarr Ubbasson is my lord. He send me with a message for you.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded. “Say it.”</p><p>“You are to ride down to meet him and you are to die, Lord. Upon his sword.” The man’s face was white and his horse danced beneath him. He did nothing to calm it.</p><p>Uhtred laughed, loud and derisive. “He wishes to set the square?”</p><p>Erik shook his head. “No, Lord.” He swallowed, his eyes flicking away and then back again. “He says that you are to hand yourself over to his justice or he will slaughter everyone with you, to the last man.”</p><p>This drew a genuine laugh from Uhtred. Ragnar and Finan both snorted. Erik swallowed again and glanced over his shoulder at the camp below. There was no shield wall forming. No one seemed to be gathering their weapons. Either Ivarr was a fool or he was very confident in his numbers.</p><p>Uhtred tapped Lightening’s flank with his heel and she trotted forward a couple steps. Finan tensed. “How about you lead us down to him and we can see where we go from there?”</p><p>The man bobbed his head and sagged in his saddle, before nudging his horse around. Finan hissed at him quietly. “What do you think you’re doing?”</p><p>Uhtred shrugged. “This is exactly what I wanted. Why would I spit on a gift from the gods?”</p><p>“You bloodyminded…” The Irishman trailed off into an undertone that Uhtred couldn’t hear.</p><p>Ragnar shifted in his saddle. “Are you prepared for this? You aren’t as young as you were. Ivarr is likely barely twenty.”</p><p>Uhtred rolled his eyes and shot his brother a deeply unimpressed look. “Thank you for the boost of confidence, Ragnar. Ivarr is an overeager puppy, blinded by hatred and rage. And I am not so old as all that. I’ve only barely turned thirty. Anyway, if I’m old, you’re ancient.”</p><p>“Bah!” Ragnar said, looking affronted, but his cheeks pinked a little. </p><p>Actually, now that Uhtred thought about it, Ragnar was likely over forty, old by any standard. He hardly looked older than Uhtred himself, but appearance meant nothing. The thought of it made the bottom drop out of his stomach. He shook the thought away. Now was not the time to contemplate anyone’s mortality. </p><p>A large blond man-child, easily Ubba’s height but looking like his beard had barely grown in, was waiting for them near the bottom of the hill. He’d brought a small group of warriors with him, but they appeared only lightly armed. Uhtred was beginning to think it was both overconfidence and stupidity.</p><p>“Ivarr Ubbasson. You look very like your father.” Uhtred called, when they’d neared the group. He pulled his horse up still a good ways away and dismounted. Ragnar, Sihtric, Finan, and Mehrasa did the same. </p><p>Erik cleared away, riding by Ivarr and his men to rejoin the camp. Ivarr stepped forward. “Have you come to die, Uhtred Daneslayer?”</p><p>Uhtred grinned, wide and sharp. “I have come to set the square. I have heard that you have a problem with me and I am willing to let you resolve it with a fight to first blood.”</p><p>Ivarr’s face went dark. A vein stood out on his forehead and both his hands curled into fists. He reminded Uhtred even more strongly of Ubba up close. “I will kill you. With or without the square. I will take your head! You killed my father!”</p><p>“I did. By the sea at Cynuit Hill many years ago. He died well.” </p><p>“I will have your head for it!” Ivarr yelled, spittle flying. His face was purpling with his fury.</p><p>Uhtred glanced over at Ragnar with a raised eyebrow. Ragnar shrugged. “A fight to the death then.” Uhtred offered.</p><p>In response, Ivar roared, rage twisting his face. Uhtred blinked at the force of it and was abruptly back on that beach, watching Ubba do the same, barefoot and armor-less. He squared the memory, blinking hard, and purposefully arched a skeptical brow as he watched the young man scream, projecting as much disdain as possible. “Though you look like him, you are not nearly as impressive as your father, nor as loud.” He said, when the scream had tampered off. He flattened his voice, sounding bored. “Let us set the square.”</p><p>“No!” Ivarr hollered, breathing hard. “I need no hazel sticks to kill you. You do not deserve the honor!”</p><p>The men at his back shifted on their feet, glancing at one another. Refusing to set the hazel square was a grave insult and reserved only for the most untrustworthy of opponents. Uhtred would have refused to set the hazel branches for Haesten, but no one else. </p><p>Uhtred stepped forward, drawing his sword, and scoffed loudly. “Fine. You want to kill me, boy? You want to avenge your father? Do it properly. Or if not, come and die on my sword, just like Ubba did. Come and kiss Serpent-Breath. We came to wage war and she’s hungry for blood. Yours is as good as any.”</p><p>The man-child roared again, drawing both dagger and sword, and charged. Uhtred met him halfway between, bringing Wasp-Sting up to block a blow and darting around to Ivarr’s left. The Dane corrected, but a beat later than he ought. Ubba had had grace and power in his swings, agility in his movements. He’d used his height as an advantage and refused to let his bulk become a liability. His son had obviously not mastered that art yet, for his movements were just a little too slow, a little lumbering. Uhtred ducked under a wide swing of Ivarr’s giant sword and danced back three, then four steps, taking him out of the range of the blade’s arc. </p><p>Uhtred watched him for a moment, circling, both hands on the hilt of Serpent-Breath. Ivarr’s face hadn’t paled at all, still purple with rage, the vein still throbbing at his temple. He was panting, great heaving breaths, and Uhtred found himself nearly disappointed. Sigefrid had been twice the challenge that Ivarr was going to be, and then some. He sighed, dodged another charge, and pulled his focus back on the fight. He couldn’t afford to get careless now.</p><p>Ducking low, Uhtred darted in and stabbed up high with Wasp-Sting, causing Ivarr to twist to his right, directly into the path of Uhtred’s sword. The blade left a long slice down Ivarr’s side, from hip to navel, but it wasn’t deep enough to gut him. He roared, stumbling backward and Uhtred let him go without pressing his advantage.</p><p>He needed to show Ivarr’s men that he had tried to give the man an honorable death, even though Ivarr had offer him nothing but the deepest insult. </p><p>Uhtred circled, eyes trained on Ivarr, who was panting hard now, fear beginning to show in his eyes. “Come and get your revenge, Ivarr Ubbasson. Come and die with honor, like your father did. Come and join him in Odin’s corpse-hall.” Uhtred said it as calmly as he could, but it had the expected effect.</p><p>The fear fled from Ivarr’s eyes, replaced with an all-consuming rage, and Ivarr roared again. He came at Uhtred like a herd of stampeding horses, all rage and power and uncontrolled movement. Uhtred took a breath and met him, taking the impact of both Ivarr’s dagger and his sword on the long edge of Serpent-Breath. It nearly buckled him, nearly drove the sword from his hand, but it gave him just enough time to duck inside Ivarr’s guard and drive Wasp-Sting up under his ribcage. </p><p>Immediately, Ivarr’s hands went lax, his weapons sliding across Uhtred’s sword to drop to the ground. He let out an odd like huffing gasp and staggered back a step, Uhtred’s saxe still buried in his chest. His mouth gaped out, blood sluggishly drizzling out. His face had contorted into a rictus of pain, a death mask. He looked up, meeting Uhtred’s gaze, and Uhtred reached out to drag one of his hands to the hilt of the weapon protruding from his chest. “Say hello to your father for me, Ivarr Ubbasson. Tell him you too died well on the sword of Uhtred Ragnarsson.”</p><p>Ivarr’s hand convulsed, clutching at the blade for a moment, before his eyes dimmed and his legs folded beneath him. He collapsed, like a child’s toy tossed to the floor. </p><p>Uhtred straightened and stared down at the body, making no move to retrieve Wasp-Sting. His arms, loose and trembling from Ivarr’s last blow, ached. The fight had felt like it was over in barely a blink, but now he realized that he was sweating. His muscles felt rubbery, maybe from the flood of adrenaline, and he was breathing hard, his pulse hammering in his temples. Somewhere, far away, people were cheering. He blinked, trying to force his body to listen to him. He needed to move. He needed to look up at Ivarr’s men, to claim this victory and speak to them, but all he could do for several sluggish minutes was pant and stare down at the vacant face, so like Ubba’s, that he’d covered in blood. </p><p>He was, maybe, getting too old for this. </p><p>A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched. Sound and scent flooding back in in a rush. He shook his head and finally dragged his gaze away. It was Hild who had touched him. It was always Hild. She smiled up at him, waiting patiently for him to pull himself together. When he exhaled and managed a weak smile in return, she lifted his saxe—how had he not notice her pull it from Ivarr’s body?—and handed it to him. He took it automatically and then glanced down. It was coated in blood. Something about the thick redness of it hardened his resolve. If he couldn’t pull himself together, if he did this poorly, it would be his blood on someone else’s blade, Hild’s blood, Ragnar’s blood, Finan’s blood, Gisela’s blood. He simply could not let that happen. </p><p>He looked up at the small gathering of Ivarr’s men. They were watching him warily. He stepped forward and watched several of them flinch. Thinking fast, Uhtred made a show of wiping his blades and sheathing them both. Several of the Danes relaxed, but two in particular seemed to think that the weapons weren’t relevant to how deadly he was. Uhtred would have been flattered if this wasn’t so important. Straightening his spine, he meet their eyes in turn, addressing them in Danish. “You know that I am Uhtred Ragnarsson. You know that I broke the shield wall at Ethandun, that I helped Earl Ragnar take Dunholm and that he helped me take Bebbenburg, my ancestral seat. You know what I have done. And now you have seen me kill your lord. Ivarr was blinded by his hatred. He would have made a good lord one day and a mighty warrior, but he let hatred and revenge cloud his judgment. I met his father man-to-man and I gave him an honorable death. They feast together in Valhalla. There is no shame in this. Just as there is no shame in finding a new Lord to serve. You were sworn to Ivarr, not Guthred of Cumbraland. So I ask you now: will you join me? Will you swear to me and fight by my side? Together, we are more than a match for Guhtred’s army and we shall take Eoferwic for our own.”</p><p>One of the wary Danes, one of the ones who had not been impressed by his sheathing his weapons, stepped forward. He was a short man, wiry, with a face like a weasel. He reminded Uhtred of Rypere. “Lord, why should we join you? Though you speak our tongue like you were born to it, you are a Saxon. We have heard the stories too, that you warm the bed of Alfred, King of Saxons. Why would a Dane swear to you?”</p><p>Uhtred bristled, aggravation pickling over his skin, but Ragnar spoke before he could voice an objection. “Because,” his brother said, stepping up to his side. “He is a good Lord and a giver of wealth. It is an honor to serve him.”</p><p>The other wary Dane, taller than the first, but no less wiry, spoke up now, calling, “How would you know? Aren’t you his brother?”</p><p>Ragnar tilted his head, a smile pulling his mouth, but not reaching his eyes. “I swore my oath to him months ago. Uhtred Ragnarsson of Bebbenburg is my little brother and my lord. He has Danes in his service.” Ragnar gestured behind him and Sihtric came forward. “As well as Frisians and Franks, Saxons, and those from farther afield.” </p><p>Uhtred tilted his chin up, examining the small group. They were clustered tight together, shifting on their feet, their gazes meeting and slipping away from each other. He sighed. “I have a man in my service who came as a messenger from the Kings of Denmark and chose to stay and fight with me.” </p><p>Warsz, who’d spent much of the ride south hovering at Uhtred’s back, to Finan’s sly amusement, straightened. Uhtred gestured him forward and he came to stand at Uhtred’s shoulder. “I swore myself to Lord Uhtred by my own choice, though I have served King Halfdan of Denmark for many years. He sent me here with greetings for Uhtred, who he views as a friend, for all he was born a Saxon.”</p><p>The two wiry Danes nodded. They glanced at the others in silence, but apparently no conversation was needed because the first one who had spoke stepped forward again. “Lord Uhtred, I am Arne, first among Ivarr’s warriors. I speak for all his men when I pledge to fight with you. You have honored our Lord, even after the grave insult he gave you, and your reputation carries even across the seas. We will follow you.”</p><p>Uhtred exhaled, relief a sudden pulsing thing in his chest. It spread out, tingling in his limbs, and he was lightheaded with it. He swallowed, but shoved it away. They hadn’t won quite yet. “I gladly accept you all into my service. How many men fought for Ivarr, Arne?”</p><p>Arne shrugged. “Nearly four hundred and sixty, Lord.”</p><p>Uhtred nodded, doing a quick mental calculation. “Good. Join us. We march on to Eoferwic. The crown of Northumbria belongs to me and I am here to take what is mine.”</p><p>“Yes, Lord.” Arne said, his eyes going wide. He and the rest retreated back to the camp, where word was clearly spreading about the fight. </p><p>Uhtred watched the news ripple through the waiting men and behind it, a wave of battle preparations. He turned his back on it and smiled. “Well, that was about three quarters of the battle. Warsz, Ragnar, I want to—“</p><p>“If you thank me, Uhtred, I’ll wring your skinny little neck.” Ragnar grinned.</p><p>Uhtred huffed, but his smile widened. “Fine, I’ll thank Warsz, then.”</p><p>The man in question shook his head. “No need, Lord. I was happy to help.”</p><p>“Lord, you’re bleeding.” Sihtric’s voice, soft and worried, surprised Uhtred. He glanced down at where Sihtric had laid a hand on his arm and realized that he was right.</p><p>There was a long gash running from his elbow up nearly to his shoulder. He didn’t remember getting it, nor did he really feel it now. It seeped blood, thin and barely dripping, down his forearm. Curious, he flexed his arm a little and the blood flowed freer. </p><p>“Uhtred!” Hild’s voice snapped like a banner in a harsh wind, breaking his concentration. He looked up at her with wide eyes. “Stop making it worse! Here, Warsz, would you fetch me a length of clean bandage? And—“</p><p>“Sister, I have some willow bark on my sword belt and a mash of yarrow and goldenrod.” It was Mehrasa, Uhtred realized with a start. He’d forgotten all about her. Now she came forward and offered Hild a small, leather pouch. </p><p>Hild smiled gratefully at her, before turning back to Uhtred. He shook his head at her and Warsz, who had glanced at him before doing the nun’s bidding. “Hild, I will not ride into a possible battle with bandages. Let it bleed. When we are inside the city and whatever happens next is done, then you and Gisela may cover me in poultice and bandage me to your heart’s content.”</p><p>Hild scowled and shook her head, but let her hands fall away from him. “I will hold you to that promise, Uhtred.”</p><p>He grinned at her. “I expect you to.” He took a breath and crossed back to his horse. “Come. We may still have a battle to fight yet. And now we have the numbers to win it handily.” He mounted and watched the others do the same.</p><p>One last hurdle and Eoferwic would be theirs. His promise to Alfred would be fulfilled. The thought curled around his heart, warm and sharp, and he exhaled. He just had to survive the coming battle, if there would be one.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments or Kudos are always very appreciated.</p>
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